design as hypnosis

The fundamental focus of the academic program here at ID is communication. Using numbers, words, and pictures to convey ideas to other humans happens at the intersection of graphic design, marketing, business thinking, and - of course - art. Is it exaggerating to say that communication is the central activity of every human organization?

I've been learning to make foam-core models, posters, books, movies, sound clips, and photos all towards the end of showing somebody what I'm talking about. At least half of the genius behind any idea is how well it's represented and how convincingly it is presented. Whereas the struggle of an artist is to represent something exactly and precisely as he sees it, the struggle of a designer is to get somebody else - or better yet a large group of people - to see what he sees, whether or not that requires actually building a detailed, precise instantiation.

The logical conclusion of this conception of design is that the ideal designer can induce mass hallucinations.

The best place to learn about hallucinations is religion, though there are important things to learn from theater and magic as well.
1) Set aside a meeting time regular intervals, a few days apart so that the message we're repeating gets rejuvenated just as it's about to be forgotten.
2) Bring a bunch of people together physically, and use some passionate rhetoric, interpersonal drama, or other means to bind them emotionally so they'll all trust each other and feel as a community.
3) After a few weeks of meetings, have an extra-long meeting - maybe two days straight? - and pump up the energy and the abstraction of the message so that not everybody is quite following and they're struggling to imagine what you might be getting at.
4) Once everybody is out in dream-land, jump back down to a more concrete level and give a few specifics (but not as finalized or closed as a model, more like just a few attributes) so they will all be able to agree on something when discussing later.



(photos from last night's end of year show)