The long felt weight of an irreconcilable difference finally finds peace... in my mind
I have, for quite some time, excessively brooded over the topics, or rather the definitions, of art and design. I have this paranoia about the two.
It started while I was at Fine Art college in the States. I noticed the rivalry between the two departments of Fine Art and Graphic Design, both were in competition with one another as to which produced the most exciting work and both pretty much existed in fear of one another, that maybe one would outdo the other. I can note these observations because I've been a student of both disciplines. The other thing I notice is that it’s somehow considered cooler if you have a fine art practise as a designer, but sucks if you’re an artist with design experience.
Well, I really didn't care about any of this until I was a graphic design student. I was happily on my way supporting myself with my web design career while being able to experiment with the mediums and topics I was interested in and calling that “art”. In fact I freely interchanged the words “art” and “design” all the time.
I was taking a typography course and had a lecture by a designer that said something to the effect of “You are not artists. You are designers. You are there to bring your ideas and skills to work as a tool.” This statement seriously bothered me, I wanted to stand up and say, “We are artists!” Later I realised it had this effect on me because of the truth behind it and my interpretation of the statement as some sort of limitation for creativity, and more importantly what it is I actually want to do. I now appreciate the upset I felt because this led me to clarity. Now I can say, “OK this is a design job, and this is fine art.” And I do so pretty much to our lecturer’s terms, where if there is a brief of requirements, or the content is not mine, like in a brochure then I say “That’s design.” However, even if the content is mine at times, like I want to make a book about my sculpture, it still has a specification attached to it even though it’s parameters I set. Where what I consider fine art are those which outcome and content has no boundaries.
How I feel at this moment is that the only people that really care what is art and what is design are the artist and designer. Really this should be down to the discretion of the viewer, if they feel like categorising, rather than the creator of the work explaining.
It started while I was at Fine Art college in the States. I noticed the rivalry between the two departments of Fine Art and Graphic Design, both were in competition with one another as to which produced the most exciting work and both pretty much existed in fear of one another, that maybe one would outdo the other. I can note these observations because I've been a student of both disciplines. The other thing I notice is that it’s somehow considered cooler if you have a fine art practise as a designer, but sucks if you’re an artist with design experience.
Well, I really didn't care about any of this until I was a graphic design student. I was happily on my way supporting myself with my web design career while being able to experiment with the mediums and topics I was interested in and calling that “art”. In fact I freely interchanged the words “art” and “design” all the time.
I was taking a typography course and had a lecture by a designer that said something to the effect of “You are not artists. You are designers. You are there to bring your ideas and skills to work as a tool.” This statement seriously bothered me, I wanted to stand up and say, “We are artists!” Later I realised it had this effect on me because of the truth behind it and my interpretation of the statement as some sort of limitation for creativity, and more importantly what it is I actually want to do. I now appreciate the upset I felt because this led me to clarity. Now I can say, “OK this is a design job, and this is fine art.” And I do so pretty much to our lecturer’s terms, where if there is a brief of requirements, or the content is not mine, like in a brochure then I say “That’s design.” However, even if the content is mine at times, like I want to make a book about my sculpture, it still has a specification attached to it even though it’s parameters I set. Where what I consider fine art are those which outcome and content has no boundaries.
How I feel at this moment is that the only people that really care what is art and what is design are the artist and designer. Really this should be down to the discretion of the viewer, if they feel like categorising, rather than the creator of the work explaining.
posted by erin at 6:25 pm
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