Modes of Criticism 3 – Design and Democracy

The drive to gleefully whitewash complex issues with absurdly simple (but graphically stunning!) ‘solutions’ is permanently received by design with open arms. It focuses on the individual, in a carefully packaged universal formula that can be marketed and thrive on a superficial layer of promise and deception.

Contents
Style? Strategy! On Communication Design as Meaning Production, Els Kuijpers
Continuous Rebranding: Interview with Angela Mitropoulos
Graphic Design Against Brexit (and Beyond), Laura Gordon
Design Activism: A Conversation by the Decolonising Design Group
Linkedin Society, Silvio Lorusso
Hardwired Hegemony: Art & Design After Neoliberalism, Luke Pendrell and James Trafford

Contributors
Els Kuijpers is a design critic, lecturer and curator in the field of culture and visual communication; and PhD candidate at ACPA, Leiden University (NL), doing research into ‘the politics of design: the liberating potential of communication design in post/modern times – towards a critical method in communication design.’
Angela Mitropoulos is a Sydney-based theorist and academic. She is the author of Contract & Contagion: From Biopolitics to Oikonomia (2012), as well as numerous essays on borders, finance and work. Her most recent published essay is on post-Fordist fascism, and her forthcoming book is titled Infrastructures of Uncommon Forms.
Laura Gordon is a designer, researcher and educator based in London (UK). She teaches Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art, and is co-founder of Crowd Talks.
The Decolonising Design Group was founded in 2016 by eight design researchers, artists, and activists stemming from or with ties to the Global South, as a response to Euro- and Anglocentric socio-technical politics and pedagogies of design as both a field of research and praxis. In that sense, the group does not aim to offer an “alternative perspective” on design, but rather to question the very foundations upon which the discipline was established.
Silvio Lorusso is a designer without qualities, an artist without a gallery and a writer without spell checker. He is currently based in Rotterdam (NL) and writes on the blog Welcome to the Entreprecariat.
Luke Pendrell leads the Visual Communication programme in the School of Art at the University of Brighton. He is co-editor of Speculative Aesthetics (Urbanomic, 2015) and is co-authoring The End of Culture (with James Trafford). Work has been exhibited at amongst others; MoMi New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, The Barbican and Tate Britain.
James Trafford is Senior Lecturer in Critical Approaches to Art & Design at the University for the Creative Arts, Epsom (UK). He is author of Meaning in Dialogue (Springer, 2017), co-editor of Speculative Aesthetics (Urbanomic, 2015), and currently working on a monograph entitled Militant Reason, and co-authoring The End of Culture (with Luke Pendrell).

Details
Paperback, 13.5 x 21 cm, 96 pp
ISBN: 978-9491677779
Edited and designed by Francisco Laranjo
Published by Onomatopee

 

 

 

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