ESSAYS & WRITING

The Houston Billboard (2008)

Influencing Machines: My Early Influences (2005)

A World of My Own: Statement of Work (2005)

Code Clerics and The New Truth (2005)

Follow the Dotted Line: A Film Proposal (2004)

Twenty Years of Emigre Magazine (2003)

 

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The Houston Billboard TOP
An essay for the exhibition catalog, The means by which we find our way

Houston, Texas—it is the place where I grew up. There are particular aspects to your home town that become largely invisible due to familiarity. You just accept them as part of the world, it is the baseline environment by which you judge all others. I've always been aware of certain aspects of the place: it is sprawling, the traffic is terrible and the visual clutter of the highways leave much to be desired, but sometimes it takes a period of absence to see the familiar with renewed clarity.

I lived in Houston for most of the first 34 years of my life. I have visited other places, but remained in Houston and therefore never had an opportunity to truly dissect another city to draw comparisons. That changed just over a year ago when I relocated to Sarasota, Florida—a slightly odd, rather sleepy seaside town that seems to be on the verge of something (what exactly I'm not sure). It was only after having been here for several months and then returning to Houston that the aforementioned "qualities" of Houston became acutely evident.

It struck me driving from the airport. Billboards, billboards, billboards everywhere. Sure I had noticed them before, but they seemed now bigger and uglier than ever and more numerous than I recalled. Driving in Houston can be a competitive sport, but after returning I couldn't help but notice my eyes wandering to them. It is a bit like seeing a horrible accident, you just can't turn away. Why? I thought, why had this visual assault ever been allowed?

It was obvious that the city planners back in Sarasota had it right when they decided to minimize the presence of billboards and other visual clutter. Why add more commercial/advertising junk to the public arena of the outdoors? (I suppose the public sphere of which I speak is increasingly private space…but I digress.) When I was growing up, I was never fully conscious of how much the urban sprawl, car culture and highway system tied in so directly with these massive roadside propaganda placards. It was all a bit nauseating. Of course, I realize the presence of ubiquitous advertising in the urban spaces of the US is commonplace. We can all visualize places like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. It is just unfortunate that some of the worst examples of this overload of ugliness can be found in the place I will likely always consider "home".

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Influencing Machines: My Early Influences
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Introduction

There are various facets to personality and persona that can be traced to social situations, family history, and events; friends and adversaries. The people and events of my life have intersected in ways that influence the person I was, am and will be. I have constructed some dominant personality
attributes* that will hopefully reveal some of my personal biases and interests and give some insight into my work (when that time comes). Media (television, film, books, music, etc.) has had a huge impact on who I am and how I think. Personal events, and relations have fed into my relationship with media, and vice versa. I have listed various interactions** that have been directly or indirectly influential in my life.

I realized years ago that I am an escapist, not to the degree that I once was, but I still enjoy the imaginative, the fantastic, the possibilities of the future and the forgotten wonders of the past. My "reality" as a child was often something I didn't want to deal with, so I found solace elsewhere; going inward, escaping into a story or inhabiting the point of contact between graphite and paper.

Primary Influences

escapist - (past/present/future) This is a catch-all category. Some of these other descriptors are a sub-set of my tendency toward escapism. Losing track of time was common when I was a kid. I would devote hours to my own projects: game making, drawing, and devising formulas with no function other than self distraction.
technologist - (past/present/future) I always wanted a computer as a kid. I was jealous of my middle class friends with their Apple II or Commodore 64. We got our first family computer in 1991, some 10 years after my peers. I still have the first documents I ever created on that machine. I got my own computer in 1995, a PowerMac 8500, which I still own. I have been acquiring machines and reveling in the technical ever since.
jragon - (past/present/future) For as long as I can remember I've made up my own words; sometimes hybrids, sometimes derived situational or spoken context, some non-sensical and completely made up.
nostalgic - (past/present/future) I have very sentimental moments. I tend to miss people and places before they are ever gone. I enjoy reminiscing about good times with friends. There have been stretches in my life when I spent almost as much time reflecting on the past as I have living in the moment.
collector - (past/present/future) I've been a collector of one type or another most of my life: action figures, comic books, coins and computers. I've had several that I've started and then abandoned.
archivist - (past/present/future) I am an obsessive structurer of information. I am constantly cataloging and compiling data: personal and official, utilitarian and trivial. As a friend says, "I am a digital pack rat."
gamer/narrator - (past/present/future) I am an obsessive, a drafter of maps and maker of scenarios. Gaming is one of the few ways that I was social as a kid. Dungeons and Dragons was true escapism, I would play for hours, sometimes days. Video games were another fixation, but not nearly as interesting. As the story teller I was able to enjoy the attention and respect of my friends.
obstinate - (past/present/future) I am hard headed, persistent, hard working and obsessive. I'm sure I have inherited this from my mother.
watch dog - (past/present/future) I've always been suspicious of power and authority. I question the actions and motivations of those who have it.

Secondary Influences

perfectionist - (past) I used to become so engrossed in a drawing or project that I would lose all sense of time. I refused to stop working on it until I felt that it was finished and perfectly crafted.
nomad - (past/present) I have never stayed in one place for very long. I moved roughly 6 times from birth to elementary school. From the time I started elementary school through high school I moved 9 times. My adult years have been a bit more stable. From the age 18 to 33 I have moved 7 times. That makes a life time total of roughly 22 different places.
outcast - (past) I moved so often I was always the new kid, and so I sometimes didn't bother trying to make connections with people.
impoverished - (past) - It would have been nice if my mother had finished high school, but she made bad choices and got married too young and had me two months after turning 16, so she never earned much more than minimum wage.
catholic - (past/present) my entire family is Southern Baptist, but my mom decided we would be Catholic. My grandfather thought Catholics were misguided hell bound fools and reminded me every opportunity he got. He was a hateful man really, who found more satisfaction in condemning others than paying attention to his own faults. Personally I think religion is a crock. God and I are on unstable terms.
scientist - (past) I was convinced that one day I would be a paleontologist (study of ancient fossils) or an archaeologist (study of prehistoric culture). Genetics, biology, ancient relics, and knowlege have always interested me.
smart one - (past) My family always called me the "smart one," even though I never really thought I was unusual. I was very obsessive and rigorous about certain things. I would read my grandmothers set of encyclopedias from the 1950s and could remember obscure facts. They had expectations that I would finish college and so did I.
scorpio - (past/present/future) I never really bought into this stuff, but I had other people who insisted I "fit the profile". According to them I should be a focused, jealous, secretive, sex crazed, power hungry individual. So maybe there is a small truth in there.
confidant - (past/present/future) For some reason, I seem to be the designated psychiatrist among my circle of friends. I am a sympathetic ear, I've always been a good listener and I can keep a secret.
introvert - (past) It used to be said that I was detached, anti-social, too quiet. One good girl friend snapped me out of it.

Books
The Hobbit - Tolkien
1984 - Orwell
Dune - Herbert
The Holy Bible - various
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Dick
The Martian Chronicles - Bradbury
Neuromancer - Gibson
Being Digital - Negroponte
Orality and Literacy - Ong
The New Double Speak - Lutz
Me ++ - Mitchell
The Ecstacy of Communication - Baudrillard
Open Sky - Virillio
What Liberal Media? - 
Terrorism and War - Zinn
Posthumanism - various
The Medium is the Message - McLuhan/Fiore
The Mechanical Mind - Crane
Protocol - Galloway
Design Noir - Dunne & Raby
Your Call is Important to Us - Penny
Illuminations - Benjamin
Comic Books (various - 1960s to 1990s)
Various philosophical/theoretical writings on language, culture and society
Too many design books to mention

Philosophers/Thinkers
Michael Foucault
Clement Greenburg
Jean Baudrillard
Italo Calvino
Roland Barthes
Walter Benjamin
Frederick Jameson
Marshall McLuhan
Paul Virilio
Walter Ong
George Orwell
Hal Foster

Magazines
Grooves
Make
MacWorld
National Geographic
Wired
Speak
Ad Busters
Emigre

Music
Various 60s psychedilia
Various 70s pop and rock
Various 80s pop and electronic
Beck
Flaming Lips
Modest Mouse
David Byrne
Dead Can Dance
Brian Eno
Cocteau Twins
Stereo Lab
Thievery Corporation
Medeski, Martin And Wood
Vangelis
Gorillaz
Aphex Twin
Björk
Spark
Ray Ogar (see aliases)
Mouse on Mars
Prefuse 73

Film/Television
Television addict (1970s - 1990s)
Sinbad movies (1960s?)
Godzilla movies (1960s-70s?)
Cartoons/Animation (of all kinds!)
Kung Fu Theatre (1970s)
Sunday Sci-Fi (1970s)
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Blade Runner
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Terminator
THX 1138
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Ghost in the Shell 2
Gattica
Memento
12 Monkeys

Designers/Artists/Movements
Medieval manuscripts
Heraldry drawings
Calligraphy
Hermetic symbols/drawings
Scientific etchings/illustrations
Art nouveau
Dada
Surrealism
War propaganda
Cyberpunk
Digital/Geek culture
Post Modernism
Dave McKean
Vaughn Oliver
David Carson
Why Not Associates
Elliot Earls
Tolleson Design

Collections
Magazines (various)
Comic books (extensive)
Coins (modest)
Computers (Macintosh primarily - 15 functional)
Old software (to accompany the computer collection)
Printers/Typewriters (modest)

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A World of My Own: Statement of Work TOP

I enjoyed the first design project I was ever given; rearranging a handful of black geometric shapes on a white square. The possibilities of infinite reconfiguration were alluring, the search for completion and meaning found in abstract forms.

it just felt right.

I had considered several areas of study: fine art, illustration, political science, anthropology, engineering and architecture, but managed to talk myself out of each. In the end, I came back to my first option, the art department, to see what I could find. It was quite by accident that I discovered graphic design. The woman working at the front desk of the Art Office was misinformed (there is no Illustration curriculum) but it worked out regardless. While an undergraduate design student I grappled with the loose confines of the client/designer (instructor/student) relationship. I knew post-graduation things would be different. Admittedly I struggled with the transition to the working world and the idea of production on demand.

graphic design - The applied art of arranging image and text to communicate
a message. It may be applied in any media, such as print, digital media, motion
pictures, animation, packaging, and information signs. Graphic design as a
practice can be traced back to the origin of the written word, but only in the
late 19th century did it become identified as a distinct entity.
{slightly modified excerpt from wikipedia.com}

A good designer is a willing collaborator, a researcher that seeks to understand the objectives of an institution, business or individual, often referred to as the client. The mission is, usually, to produce clear communication between the client and their audience, but also to distinguish the client from their institutional or corporate peers. To be honest, I never really liked clients very much, maybe more accurately, I really didn't agree with their objectives. There were exceptions of course. The occasional client in medical research, art museums, public parks and similar institutions were relevant or noble enough for me to be engaged. Having worked at three design firms over six years I learned to be a better designer, but too often there was a lack of meaningful work. I was ready to move into a new phase of my design career or to look for another area of study. In the back of my mind I always thought that I would like to teach, but to instruct at the university level would require a masters degree. So the decision was made.

My first semester back at the university, I quickly realized how much I missed the experience. Free of the pragmatic constrains of the designer/client relationship, I felt I could explore new conceptual and formal ground. I enjoyed the intellectual rigor and creative energy of group critique and discussion, something that was missing in my day to day design existence. As time consuming, and sometimes frustrating as it is for me, I realized that I missed having to write on a regular basis as well.

The initial goal of coming to school so that I could teach quickly receded,
that is merely an end result.
My desire to think differently, to analyze, to understand, became much deeper,
that is part of the process.

The return to grad school has been both a creatively transformative and regressive experience. I found that my current (adult?) interests in digital technology, language and politics, have intersected with my childhood and adolescent diversions: collecting, science fiction, mysticism and games. Most of the work I've produced can be categorized by cross-breeding two or more of these interests. An ultra simplified definition of my current focus relates to digital technology and choice (thesis idea)—it's meaning and impacts on society (and by extension its effects on me). To give a more detailed description of recent work, I have outlined some of the major areas of concentration. There is significant overlap and redundancy between topics:

I. Digital - hardware (personal computers, digital assistants, cell phones, the network, interface), software (communication, text messaging, interface, data collection, operating systems, source code), impacts (digital languages, code as language, tech based sub-languages, etc., electronic voting, smart mobs, travel, journey, database personae, multiplicity of existence, avatars, cybernetics, extensible memory)
II. Language - (see previous categories) orality, the gesture, language of control (influence, manipulation, word as power, glamour, casting, invocation)
III. Politics - (see previous categories) Authority, structures of control, protocol, (voting, options, choice), political figures, (the performance, acting, influence)
IV. Media - (see previous categories) The internet (plus radio, film, television), meta-media, information delivery systems (broadcasting, narrowcasting, egocasting, immediacy], , bias [opacity, transparency, questioning, complicity)
V. Personal - (see previous categories) archiving, memory, collecting, science fiction, fantasy, computers, simulation, gaming, escapism

In the last two years I have focused more on conceptual and process driven work, with a secondary focus on form or end product. I've been inspired by inventive writers, philosophers, linguists, cultural critics and tech prognosticators—all the while wishing that I had a small fraction of their ravenous, substantial minds. As a result, the work I've produced has leaned toward social critique as much as form making. I think Eric's assessment of my work is correct, in the sense that I hope to learn something from it, through the research and/or making, instead of producing work in anticipation of it's consumption.

In terms of structure and media, my work has moved toward motion and time-based pieces, replacing my usual print and simple web projects with integrated photography, collage, video, and audio. I would describe much of my work as having a "clipped" aesthetic, fragments of samples, reconstructions and modified images, recombined to make something new. I have found that my typical (print) methodology and form making, is altered by the use of video and motion. Working with footage carries it's own visual vocabulary, which I then manipulate for my own need. The shift to motion graphics has altered the way I view the design process. It is less immediate in it's results but the evolution and development of the work is more rewarding. It is very time consuming and requires much more deliberation and planning than my print work. Despite it's regimented nature, the work changes in unexpected ways during the process—it is still relatively new for me and so I am often surprised by the results. The end product is a controlled, repeatable "performance"—like writing—it is the result of a process of revision and recreation, but still a monologue; a one-way communication cast at the viewer. It is an opportunity to engage the viewer, to steer (or manipulate) them in a multi-sensory manner. The experience of working with motion and sound is as close as I've come to creating, for a fleeting moment, my own simulated world.

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Code Clerics and The New Truth
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Code and interface (existence filters), software and programmers (code clerics), new grammars and sub-languages (truth structures); unknown and misunderstood by the vast majority, affect the lives of ordinary people. The code clerics maintain the the databases and network (influencing machine), ensuring the connections between our action, movement and thought (input).

We are increasingly removed from the core ideal of self sufficience, relying on increasingly distant and misunderstood practices. Specialization has overcome generalized knowlege; making individuals less able to understand connections and meaning, the single point of view becoming dominant. It is the network that can see and understand the connections.

The database knows us, we feed it daily with bank transactions, credit card purchases, mail-in rebates, etc. You are processed; categorized, filtered, shuffled and defined. Your primary identity is simulation, collections of traceable bits, very few who profile you know you personally. This code personae usurps and overpowers your physical self in importance. Data is mined, collected and compiled building your consumptive self which is then forecast, predicted and speculated. The database wants to know, it compiles tirelessly, distilling your interests and habits, calculating age and income, points of purchase, when you go to the gym, where you use your cell phone and various other points of connection. Tracking and updating, tracking and updating, defining your shell; corporeal and ethereal via co-operative input scripts and data swapping.

The database is the hive collective that assembles and seeks to prognosticate: the source(erer) of all knowledge. It is the code clerics and their manifold skills whose accumulated efforts sum is the digital prophet and keeper of knowledge. Ask a question and the sourcerer will provide an answer.

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Follow the Dotted Line
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A film proposal on the life and work of Mark Lombardi

The main motivation behind creating a film would not be about making money, which is easy to say because I’m not really spending any money. Instead, it should reveal something about the artist and his or her place in our culture. More specifically, I decided the artist to be profiled would need to meet my own self-imposed conditions.  First, I would have to be engaged by their work. Second, they should be contemporary; an artist living during the last 100 years or so is contemporary enough. This aspect is also important from the standpoint of having greater personal relevance. Third, the content of the artist’s work should have a certain amount of importance outside the confines of the ‘art world’. In other words, the work should contain a larger cultural significance or meaning. It is with this base of criteria that I chose the artist Mark Lombardi.

The research for this project has been somewhat challenging to piece together. Lombardi died in March of 2000, so there has been a very short window of time from then to now.  I first acquired a book on his life and work , entitled Mark Lombardi, Global Networks, that was published last year. It has been an excellent foundation on which to build. A thorough search of the internet resulted in several good articles as well, particularly the article by Frances Richard, “Obsessive—Generous”: Toward a Diagram of Mark Lombardi, which describes the artist on a more human personal level. He is not a particularly well know artist outside of the art community, so he does not have a great deal of name recognition for the general public. For this reason I think it’s important to place him in proper context.

Lombardi grew up in a suburb of Syracuse, NY; he was born there in 1951. He attended college at Syracuse University where he graduated in 1974 with a degree in art history.1 He demonstrated great skill as a researcher when he was employed at Everson Museum in Syracuse, under the guidance of James Harithas. Lombardi then moved to Houston following Harithas’appointment as director of the Contemporary Arts Museum.1 Next, he worked as a librarian and archivist for the Houston Public Library’s Fine Art’s Department. It is in this capacity that Lombardi was able to hone his skills as an information architect—an organizer and distiller of vast quantities of information. Lombardi wished to be an artist as well. He would create paintings in his spare time and his early work bore a stylistic similarity to Abstract Expressionists. By the early 80’s he had married and opened his own gallery, Square One, where he showed art from the local community as well as his own. The gallery was short lived, but it solidified his interest in art making.1 Of particular interest to his research in the 1980s, was his interest in the panoramic paintings of the mid 18th to mid 19th Centuries. The over-arching concept of these paintings, that Lombardi found interesting, is their attempt to show the totality of a scene in a wide sweeping manner. It was this attempt, by the panorama painters, to capture the ‘broad view’ that would latter appear, at least conceptually, in Lombardi’s drawings.1 By the early 90s, he had compiled impressive amounts of research on various financial and political scandals, a side interest of his, but he wasn’t sure how it all related to his art. His work in the early 90s was self-described as Neo Geo, a sort of newer type of geometric abstraction. 1
It was in 1994, while in the course of talking to a friend about the interconnectedness of the savings and loan failures, that he drew out some notes on a napkin.2 It was continuing evolution of these seminal drawings that led him to his diagrammatic revelations. He used his information sketches, along with drawings by Oliver North, made public during the Iran-Contra Hearings, to synthesize a new diagrammatic form for his research.2 Thus his “Narrative Structures” were born. Once Lombardi realized the power of this new vehicle for conveying information, as well as it’s aesthetic possibilities, he began to produce more and more of these drawings. The drawings themselves were beautiful, complicated diagrams illustrating the interconnected relationships between,  among other players, U.S. politicians, international heads of state and various shady financial institutions.1 It was in 1997, that Lombardi moved from Houston to Williamsburg, VA and shortly thereafter to New York City.2 By the late 90s he was part of a number of group exhibitions, and had solo exhibitions of his work in 98, 99 and 2000.2 He was an artist on the verge of great recognition when he was found hanging in his apartment in March of 2000. The official cause of death was suicide2.

It was important, when I researched his history, that I found the proper time in his life to begin the film with. It makes sense to begin with the moment of realization Lombardi had, with the ‘note on the napkin’, because it is at that instant that the synthesis of research and the accompanying form it would eventually employ, begin to take shape. From that point on, in his career, he really started to gain momentum. When I thought of the intended audience, however, it occurred to me that the subject of Lombardi’s life and work would probably be most compelling to those in the art circles (no pun intended), as well as historians, political critics and conspiracy theorists. I don’t think that the film would have huge mainstream appeal, but it would be my expectation (in theory) that it could reach a wide audience. At the very least I think it would appeal to the same crowd that frequents the local art film houses, Greenway and River Oaks for example. In doing the research I found the subject of his life and work compelling in particular because of the Houston connection as well as connections to current President Bush and Bush Sr., and even local journalists and financial institutions. Certainly the film would be about the life and work of Lombardi, but it would focus just as much on the political and financial dealings that his work speaks of. I think his work is particularly intriguing from the standpoint of the connections that he makes to former and current foreign officials, banks and various members of the U.S. government. 

The film would focus visually in three primary areas: 1) His dialogue and interaction with his friends and associates in the art world, which would include in-depth discussions of his work and research  2) his hours spent referencing and compiling information, researching and drawing and 3) visual allusions to government investigation.

The film would begin in 1994, at the time just prior to his ‘revelation’ sketch. The introduction to Lombardi’s life would be fairly mundane, day to day activities, but would also stress, early on, his interest in painting and art history but also in politics and financial scandal. It would be important to be specific (in the film) regarding current and past news events that will impact his work in the future. An important moment in the film would be his conversation on the phone with his lawyer friend in California, when he makes his first information drawing that would steer his work’s direction afterward. His involvement in the art world is extremely important and the film would stress his personal relationships with the Houston art community: fellow artists and gallery owners in particular. The film would establish a day to day existence for Lombardi, but would start to change as he makes more and more art world connections. The research and making of the art would always be shown in isolation, his hours of toiling ‘visually’ condensed down for obvious reasons. The film would convey the sense of time investment, and focused detail that is evident in Lombardi’s work. His personality traits would be strongly expressed. My concern would be for accuracy as much as possible with some ‘slight’ exaggerations where necessary for dramatic effect.

Lombardi moves to Willamsburg in 1997 and extends his art world connections further. He is gaining in notoriety. The film would seek to illustrate this mounting recognition and building of his work and reputation in the late 90s. More and more of his time is directly tied to his art relationships and connections as well as his time spent carefully researching and crafting his work. At this point in the film, there would be brief references made to government offices and investigations. It would not be clearly defined to the audience exactly who or what is being investigated. 
Overall, character development of Lombardi and his associates would be very important. The personality traits of Lombardi that I have read were glowing. He was described as an ‘artists artist’, smart, well connected and personable. Other accounts that I have read describe him as honest, approachable and articulate. He seemed very comfortable in talking about his work. His intense interest in his research and the piecing together of conspiracies is well documented. His passion for his drawing and amazing capacity for examination and synthesis would be key traits to convey in the film.

The sense of time and pacing of the film would become gradually quicker over the course of the film. In the beginning the day to day and the process of generating the art would be comparatively leisurely and slow paced. The slow ascent to art stardom would be the intent of this subtle speeding up. With the greater recognition would come greater intensity, pressure and expectations on Lombardi that would start to destabilize him somewhat near the film’s conclusion. Again, there would be occasional brief clips of government activity and fact finding. The intensity level of the film would build more and more as Lombardi moved to New York. A friend asks him if he ever has concerns for his safety, which he shrugges off.2 Such a conversation is reported to have actually taken place. This is pivotal for the audience in connecting a potential threat to Lombardi’s life, with the various scenes of government inquisition. The buildup would culminate in the last weeks of Lombardi’s life when various friends and associates described him as paranoid and sleep-deprived: the idea that the artist can be consumed by their work.2 He seemed less and less emotionally stable. Just days before a the P.S. 1 Show, a major exhibition that he was showing in, events conspired against Lombardi.  A malfunction of the sprinkler system in his building destroyed several of his drawings including one to be included in the P.S. 1 Show. That same week his car was severly damaged while parked on the street.1 I would include references to Lombardi telling close friends that he’s being followed.5 After the P.S. 1 Show, Mark Lombardi is found dead. The next scenes of the movie would be accompanied by his closest friends questioning the nature of his death. Confirmation from the police would state that it was a typical suicide, no trace of foul play.2 My intent would be to leave the lingering possibility that other forces could have conspired against him. The ultimate conclusion will be left to the audience.

The messages conveyed by the film would be numerous. One bright individual with the time and inclination can truly ‘piece things together.’ Also, the passion and drive of an artist can be a powerful and all consuming force. Art can be relevant in ways that can embrace the conceptual and the aesthetic as well as inform and inspire. Art can also be a threat to a corrupt government, as was the case with Reynoldo Arenas. I don’t know if Lombardi killed himself, but given the revealing nature of his work, and the important individuals involved I think it would be foolish to rule out the possibility of "foul play".

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References:
1 - Robert Hobbs, Mark Lombardi, Global Networks, 2003.
2 - http://www.wburg.com/0202/arts/lombardi.html
3 - http://www.artcritical.com/golden/DGLombardi.htm
4 - http://www.pierogi2000.com/press/lombardi.html
5 - http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?
channelid=2&contentid=1012&page=2
6 – Graduate Seminar Fall 2003, Word and Image, Randy Twaddle

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Twenty Years of EMIGRE MagazineTOP

Introduction

Emigre Magazine is one of those rare publications that became a huge influence on the design and typographic communities, and by extension on publishing and advertising. It was created by a couple of Emigres, Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, the couple who remain the primary creative and directing force behind the publication. Emigre has become an icon of graphic design, it's visual high water mark was set was in the mid 90s, but it's content and level of discourse remain a powerful influence in graphic design.

VanderLans was born in the Hague, Holland in 1955. He attended the Royal Academy of Fine Art, where he studied illustration and photography and received his design training; graduating in 1979. His work was typical of the Swiss International style, which is generally characterized by clean, somewhat formulaic layouts and clear typographic hierarchy. He embraced the methods and organizing principals of modernism and, at the time, was content to follow the guidance of his instructors. It should be noted however, that VanderLans was intrigued by the work of more expressive designers such as Milton Glaser, Herb Lubalin, & Heinz Edelmann.1

After a couple of years working in the design field, VanderLans became somewhat disenchanted with his design direction and the limitations of the Swiss approach.His remedy was to travel, so he set out to visit the US. After spending some time on the west coast he decided to go back to school. VanderLans applied and was accepted into the design program at UC Berkeley in '81 where he met his future wife Zuzana Licko.1

Licko "was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, in 1961 and emigrated to the United States at the age of seven".1 She was the daughter of a biomathematician and took an early interest in computer technology. She studied architecture initially, before switching to visual studies. Because the visual studies curriculum lacked a focused structure, Licko took classes that interested her: drafting, computer programming and typography. She did not, however, enjoy calligraphy because she was left handed and her instructors forced her to use the right. Licko met VanderLans while in school and the two were married in 1983.1

VanderLans maintained some Dutch connections through involvement with traveling exhibitions of Dutch artists on the west coast. VanderLans was friends with fellow Dutch emigrants Marc Susan, an artist and screen writer Menno Meyjes. It was in 1984 that this group of four, discouraged by their inability to get published elsewhere, started Emigre magazine.1

The Early Issues

So initially Emigre was just that, a vehicle for emigrants who wanted to showcase their work. These first issues were very inclusive; filling the pages with everything from photography, architecture and painting to poetry and essays. This inclusiveness lasted only for the first few issues, after which the publication shifted its focus to graphic design. It was an opportunity, for VanderLans and Licko, to work on a project that was both self initiated and free from constraint. There was however, very little budget and production costs had to be kept to a minimum. The first few issues were produced using basic tools: a photocopier, cut paper, and a typewriter. The nature of these production methods lacked a strict grid, to the delight of VanderLans who now had a more creative outlet to balance the rigidity of his day job at the San Francisco Chronicle. Emigre, because of its production techniques, had a spontaneous energy and a distinctly non-corporate aesthestic that was desirable in the eyes of VanderLans.1

It was halfway through the production of the second issue that something major happened: the Apple Macintosh was born. Even thought most designers didn't realize it at the time, this innocent looking machine would change everything. Within six to eight years of its release, computer aided production was embraced by the vast majority of designers, advertisers and publishers. Why did this happen and what did it mean? Well, first it caused a huge shift in designer autonomy. It put most of the means of production at the designer's finger tips. This concept was not fully appreciated right away, but as the processing power and number of design specific applications increased, they becme more widely used2. Second, the Macintosh, along with a printer, scanner and key software, replaced a room full of previously indispensable design tools: cutting blades, film and transparencies, mounting boards, adhesives, rubylith and rub down type, waxers, t-squares, drafting tables, paint, air brushes, pencils and ruling pens. It changed the entire industry.

Prior to the Macintosh, designers had to relinquish control of type output to typesetters. They gave specifications for type and then waited patiently for the carefully constructed layers to return to them. The same was true of photography and illustration and printing (still true of high quality printing). There were fairly long time tables for these various parts to be finished and delivered. Once all the parts came in, then they could paste up their boards and move forward with the process. The computer put this power directly into the designer's hands. In conjunction with a dot-matrix printer, and eventually laser printers and scanners, you could actually have a hard copy of what you produced, that actually looked the way you expected. This unprecedented level of control, coupled with the long term cost savings of the Mac sealed it. Emigre purchased their first Mac in 1984 and immediately started experimenting with its capabilities. The graphics, at that stage, were crude and easily dismissed by the design mainstream, but VanderLans and Licko loved it. They saw the great potential that this machine could offer.

Licko soon found a program, called Font Editor, that would allow her to produce her own typefaces; Licko ran with this new found invention. Construction was limited to a matrix of simple square blocks. She was not very comfortable with traditional calligraphy, so she enjoyed the possibility of employing this new logic driven typography.1 Licko was challenged to re-create and interpret, with this limited visual vocabulary, the letter forms that have taken thousands of years to evolve. VanderLans and Licko wasted no time in using these new forms in their magazine. Digital type itself was not new; it had existed on computer screens, in some form, since the 1960s, but Emigre was one of the first to use this digital type to compose with and actually use it in print design. Few had ever bothered "designing" with those forms; they were considered ugly and primitive. Licko had approached established type foundries to see if they might be interested in distributing these new faces. The answer was always "No thanks".1 So, Emigre pressed on, unphased by the opinions of others. With experience and improved computer applications, her forms became increasingly sophisticated. She evolved some of her earlier studies into ever more polished and refined forms. Soon subscribers of Emigre saw the type being used and asked if they were for sale: at which point Emigre decided to distribute the type themselves.1 Emigre began distributing other experimental typefaces and eventually became the leading company for the "new digital typography"1.

The Power of Influence

After establishing itself in the late 80s and early 90s, Emigre served three essential and inter-related functions: 1) as creators and and distributors of new digital type, 2) as a showcase for experimental design and new talents and 3) as a forum for design discourse and criticism.

Emigre has always exhibited a unique flavor in it's type catalog. They've historically offered a wide variety of type options, from the utilitarian to the expressive. By 1988, Licko and VanderLans had enough success with their type foundry that they were able to quit their day jobs and devote their energy to the magazine full-time. Below is a very small sampling of the 270+ faces available from the Emige type foundry.

Emigre presented the design work and writings of new design talents. It became an important publication in terms of establishing a real forum for discussion within the graphic design community. Almost every issue was a collaboration between the Emigre staff and the guest artists & writers who were featured. The magazine became the place to see intelligent design work as well as real about it.1 There were close ties between VanderLans and Licko and leading design schools; Cranbrook and CalArts in particular.5 It became an instructional tool for academia and was embraced by these progressive design schools, and others that were interested in exploring design theory, formal experimentation and new ways of thinking. Over the years Emigre has featured the design and writing of many noteworthy designers and groups including: Nick Bell, Johnathan Barnbrook, Elliot Earls, Denise Gonzalez Crisp, Allan Hori, Sibylle Hagmann, Daniel X. O'Neil, Stephen Farrell, Anne Burdick, Ed Fella, Jeff Keedy, Designer Republic, House Industries, and many others.

Few designers were neutral in their opinion of Emigre. It was quite controversial, especially in it's formative years, in the late 80s through the early 90s. Many of the more established, traditional designers bashed the publication, calling it ugly and unsophisticated, illegible and primitive. They argued that the magazine's methods and theories held little for the real world. One of it's most famous detractors was the "veteran modernist designer" Massimo Vignelli. He railed against it's distinctly anti-modernist typography calling it "garbage", insisting that it was merely a momentary distraction2. However, just as many designers hailed them as ground breaking, opinionated and experimental, at a time when mainstream graphic design was in dire need of a inspiration and a new direction. It resonated strongly with young and progressively minded designers who sought the "new".

As part of Emigre's continual evolution, it changed formats in 1995, from it's over-sized dimensions of 11x17 to a more reader friendly and cost effective size of roughly 8.5 x 11. Along with the size shift, Emigre eventually included full color interiors. Some of the more recent issues, numbers 60 to 63 specifically, that explored a booklet format which included a music cd. They produced a years worth of these unconventional issues. The current form, used for the last two issues, is a reader's digest sized approx. 5x8; the new format and content getting back to basics; the design is purely typographic. Although the print run of the very first issue was 500 copies, with its circulation peaking at roughly 7,000 copies several years ago, its reverberations are still being felt in the design community. "The magazine that VanderLans published and art directed, and the fonts Licko developed for it, have stimulated designers to defy, and even overthrow, entrenched rules and to set new standards".4 Emigre magazine has always been honest and noble in its ambitons; it never made a conscious effort to change the world of graphic design; it just happened that way.

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References

Print References
1 Rudy VanderLans, Zuzanna Licko & Mary Gray, Emigre (the book): Graphic Design into the Digital Realm,
(Byron Preiss Visual Publication, Inc., 1993). pg. 5-38
2 Steven Heller, Merz to Emigre an Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century,
(Phaidon Press Limited, 2003). pg. 208-215

Online References
3 http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu /~mgk3k/white/white_two.html
4 http://www.emigre.com/ArticleCriticalConditions.php
5 http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/kirsch.html
6 http://www.emigre.com/Licko.php
7 http://www.typotheque.com/articles/rudy_vanderlans.html

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