Poetries Politics

Poetry must be made by all. 

Not by one.

– Isidore Ducasse. Comte de Lautréamont

The book that you see on the shelf, Poetries – Politics: A Celebration of Language, Art, and Learning is recently published by Rutgers Press. It is the outcome of a collaboration between design students at Mason Gross and SAS students. Professor of French Literature Mary Shaw and I co-taught a practicum class in 2017 that then culminated as an exhibition at the Academic Building. The book features posters that display politically charged poems from around the world that are selected by SAS students and designed bilingually by Mason Gross students. 

Poetries – Politics is edited by Jenevieve DeLosSantos, Associate Teaching Professor & Director of Special Projects, and designed by Devon Monaghan, a design alum. I have included here a PDF of sample pages from the book along with Devon’s and my articles. All the students and other contributors are listed in the PDF. It is a coffee table book with good reproductions of great collaborative student work. It is available on amazon and at Barnes & Noble next to the train station in New Brunswick, in the faculty author section.

On the Letterform of the Age by Bo-Won Keum!

Who gets to set the standards for communication, and why? Bo-Won Keum, Triple Canopy’s associate designer, addresses this question in “On the Letterform of the Age,” an essay on the role of the designer in shaping how people make meaning out of language. In considering the current state of design, Keum revisits the work of Bauhaus designers who advocated for the transformation of typography in response to the rise of the typewriter and printing press, as well as dramatic changes in the habits of readers. “The efforts by Bauhaus masters to update and standardize type for the machine age prefigured current discussions about the form and function of design in the digital age,” Keum writes, “and the need for typography to adapt to various surfaces, formats, and operating systems.”

Design Practicum Fall 2019 Animations on The Anthropocene Screened in Istanbul

December 2019, Istanbul

The anthropocene is a term that describes the current geological era. This term describes a period in which humanity is the leading force in geologically shaping the planet earth. While some scientists argue that this era began with organized agriculture in the 16th century, there are different views on its beginning, some associate it with the industrial revolution in the 19th century, or some argue that this era began in the 20th century in parallel with nuclear history. Regardless of the beginning of this period, today, climate change, which is one of the most catastrophic consequences of the present anthropocene era, is the top priority of the global agenda.

11 young designers who were in the Design Practicum class at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, in the state of New Jersey lead by design professor Atif Akin, approached this historical concept from different point of views and all visualized quantitative or encyclopedic data to create poetic meaning in the context of short animations. From microplastics to chicken bones, from political protocols to microscopic imaging techniques, from plastic bags to melting glaciers, they designed animations ranging from 30 to 60 seconds each. These animations are displayed at a whale size 39 feet LED screen at the Zorlu Performance Center in Istanbul

Katie Makar visualizes the sound recordings of the melting glaciers in the form of a wave and also points out the relationship between the melting glaciers and the rising sea level. Conor Finn deals with the aesthetics of the crisis screens of computer operating systems, adapting it to an animation that criticizes the environmental stalemate of the planet and its policies. Although it does not seem to have a very important place in the seriousness of the subject, 60 billion chickens produced and consumed each year and their bones are important in anthropocene research in the academic field. Taking this into account, Maya Tillman visualizes this striking data in fast food aesthetics. Francesca Stoppa, on the other hand, draws attention to the particle density in the atmosphere by acting with the data published by NASA in 2019. Animations there is also a small Turkish surprise inside, in limiting the use of plastic bags in Turkey, the United States a lot of the state from the early measures taken has learned that Sara Reed slightest a Turkish proverb, using the iconic New York plastic bag design. Tyler Lee not only experimented with electromicroscopic images that imply the technological advancement of humanity in. Poetic way, he also designed and implemented the visual identity of the project on behalf of his classmates. Elyssa Feerrar changes our point of view from the surface to the deep ocean and she created a cartoony looking dystopic underwater ocean view. While Jennifer Aguirre points our attention to urban deforestation, she uses images from both New York and Istanbul high rises. Both Lau Krystal and Jillian Mulhern were so much interested in the risk of microplastic pollution in the oceans, they took different ways of visualizing the phenomenon, while Jillian was interested in the consumer products Lau chose to literally and visually represent the microparticles on this whale size screen. Rushika Raman visualized number of chemical substances used in the plastic industry and their IUPAC names in a typographic animation that all started with “Poly-“.

For this international collaboration, organized by Deniz Akgüllü, director of digilogue sponsored by Zorlu Holding, we found this concept worth considering and scrutinizing as it is an issue of equal concern to everyone on the planet, from Istanbul to New Brunswick, New Jersey.  

You can also view and download the whole animation in its original format:

Dimensionism.Space

Dimensionism: Modern Art in the Age of Einstein, on view at the Zimmerli Museum through January 5, 2020, is a groundbreaking exhibition that explores how modern art was influenced by advances in science, from Einstein’s theory of relativity to newly powerful microscopic and telescopic lenses.

Dimensionism.Space is a microsite conceptualized, designed and developed by the Design Practicum Fall 2019 class at the Art & Design department at Mason Gross School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, on the occasion of this exhibition. The Designers in this class wanted to promote this seminal exhibition across the campus through a contemporary and computational lens by way of reflecting on the work of their choice and creating a digital avatar or a tribute to that in the form of code and its visual reflection. This microsite is designed and produced by, Jennifer Aguirre, Elyssa Feerrar, Conor Finn, Lau Krystal, Tyler Lee, Kathleen Makar, Jillian Mulhern, Rushika Raman, Sara Reed, Francesca Stoppa, Maya Tillman, and the project is mentored by Donna Gustafson, Thomas Sokolowski and Atif Akin.

Publication as Memory, Memorial and Monument

Friday May 17
4:00 to 6:00pm
Reception following

Brooklyn Army Terminal, Building A, 140 58th St, Brooklyn

What kind of monument is a book? How do we memorialize people, places and ideas in the digital information age? In what ways do print and digital publications break down barriers between private and public memory?

In conjunction with the exhibition The Colossus of Rutgers, by Kara Walker and her cohort of Rutgers MFA students, this event explores publication as an aspect of art and design practice that enables understanding across varied knowledge fields and connection among communities. Participants will present and describe strategies against monumentality to highlight publication as a temporal, individual and/ or democratic act. Participants include Atif Akin, Marc Handelman, Bo-Won Keum and Adam Putnam; moderated by Gerry Beegan.

Department of Art & Design, Rutgers