The bus route is anchored to a specific place via a predetermined route. Recordings on the journey are observed on the top deck of the bus, for maximum visibility. Casey illustrates ‘Place’ as ‘ anywhere you choose to take up a point of view’ (p117, 1997). Casey also ascertains that ‘every ‘Place’ has a centre - a centre of perspectival viewing from which all other places can (at least in principle) be seen (p117, 1997). Locating ‘Place’ as a centre of viewing suggests the observer is fixed to a point inside place whilst the observations occur around and outside.
-Soft Power /Hard Power Graphic dialectic
Problem solving as a form of clarity is not limited to creating visual metaphors designed to profit a capitalist based campaign. In the 1920’s Otto Neurath established ‘the Department of Transformation’ (Vossoughian p59). “The Transformer” would create visual representations of unseen scientific and social processes ‘not accessible to the naked eye’ (Vossoughian p59). These unseen representations of process were designed to ‘educate the working class about the broader systems of order at work in the contemporary city (Vossoughian p60). In addition Vossoughian notes that Neurath wanted to use the graphic representations created in this project as for the socio-political aim to “further the workers movement itself” with the aim to hand ownership of this knowledge to retain knowledge from the “hands of the adversary”
The work by Neurath in the Department of transformation can be positioned as an attempt to place intellectual “power” of knowledge in a place, in this case a city, from ruling society and back to the workers via the use of hard descriptive graphic visual devices. The work created by Neurath was developed in the 1930s. In modern environments, communication of knowledge in a place is a more complex process. Metahaven observe state branding as a form of ‘soft power’ (Vishmit, p457). Soft Power is described as “allegedly, non coercive’ (Vishmit, p453), with the ability to reach outcomes without “force, threat or payment”
-No Clarity?
The objects created in this research employ graphic design treatments, with the clarity of meaning hidden in the text and visuals. There is no problem to solve here. Meaning is layered; language is presented as visual forms of unfamiliar temporal text remixes. Meaning is not encoded in this work, instead, Graphic Design is employed as a coder of information.
- The Vibrant Object
The magazine offers a deeper contextual expansion of popular culture through image and essay. Bennett (p2) observes the object to have “thing power” (p2) (via Mitchell) and an “integral energetic vitality” (p4). These objects are vibrant things containing information, encoded signals designed to resonate beyond their existence as culture packaging. Signals are on the surface of the object, and sometimes hidden within the visual context as a form of secret history, and a route to new unfamiliar culture.
- The Design Persona
Why does everything in graphic design have to be 'clear' and easy to understand? Can the identity of the designer be confusing or cryptic. (https://testpressing.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/barney2.png)
- New Mapping
Maps create graphic landscapes. Places and objects are coded and flattened in graphic linear form. A personal biographic map is created to offer a coded view of a familiar space.
- Real Time
I sit inside the bus recording movement along the line of the route in real time with images, observations and drawings taken from the journey. The recorded information is then interpreted and presented as creative representations of the journey at a later date.
- Moving images
At the beginning of the research I took still images of external points on the journey for reference, and panoramic photographs of each bus stop. The panoramic images were originally for reference only, a method to record the buildings and spaces around the bus stop in a single image. The images revealed the spaces and objects around the bus stop as static reference points. Around the stillness of the buildings, the images recorded the movement of the vehicles as they passed the lens. The panoramic setting on the camera recorded the movement of the vehicles as broken abstract forms. These forms were varied. Passing cars were constructed and deconstructed in various ways. They were stretched; sections disappeared, and appeared to hover above the road surface.