Summer Reading...On Hybridization
A decade later, the idea of hybridity is now deeply entrenched in the design world. Both the idea and, to some extent, the activity have become commonplace, although that doesn't stop designers from enthusing about hybridization as though it were the freshly cut key to a whole new cultural king...
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| Published in: | Creative Review 2011-08, p.40 |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | A decade later, the idea of hybridity is now deeply entrenched in the design world. Both the idea and, to some extent, the activity have become commonplace, although that doesn't stop designers from enthusing about hybridization as though it were the freshly cut key to a whole new cultural kingdom. In his heavily promoted book Life Style, Bruce Mau, Toronto-based graphic designer and sometime collaborator with Rem Koolhaas, rehearsed a view of hybridity that few of his designer readers would have been inclined to dispute: "Attempting to declare the discrete boundary of any practice, where one ends and another begins, has become arbitrary and artificial," he writes. "On the contrary, the overlap is where the greatest innovation is happening." The two examples that follow this assertion are oddly lightweight, to say the least. Mau mentions the intersection of cinema and digital manipulation seen in Gap commercials and The Matrix's action sequences. These media forms are neither one thing nor the other, he proposes, but "a monstrous and beautiful child of the two". Then, to represent the birth of a new kind of culture, Mau jumps to an image adapted from Nietzsche of a chorus in which every singer is a soloist, pushing forward to outsing the others, pressing against the audience and surrounding them so that they are "embedded" in this singing mass. It is impossible to tell from this passage whether Mau regards this condition as desirable or undesirable, enabling or disabling. Are we, for some reason, supposed to welcome what appears to be an oppressive restriction of our own free movement? Even if they agree with this conclusion, most designers will probably wish to find a way of collaborating with commercial forces. They frequently talk about 'changing things from the inside', but to do this, if it is possible at all, will require a clarity of political analysis, a strength of critical purpose and a tactical readiness to accept the fact that most interventions are likely to be shortlived, while the fundamental nature of the political and economic system remains intact. Few seem to possess these tools in practice and even those who come closest have drawn legitimate criticism. The late Tibor Kalman, starting from the premise that "Our culture is corporate culture", proposes a "modest solution" in his book Perverse Optimist: "Find the cracks in the wall." In other words, hook up with entrepreneurs crazy enough to allow you to use their money to change the world |
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| ISSN: | 0262-1037 2515-4621 |