exploring the twin towers 'hole'
Designers collaborate to cope with 9.11by Scott Tillitt
 © ADHOC |
The ADHOC Group, an interdisciplinary group of designers in San Francisco, has attempted exactly that with "US/THEM: An Exploration of Solidarity & Otherness," an online project exhibiting until February 28 [2002]. The group paired three sets of designers from complementary disciplines to collaborate on a "thoughtful examination" of the void left by the World Trade Center disaster.
As ADHOC explains, "US/THEM uses the events of September 11 as a starting point from which to consider fundamental questions about how we define and communicate about identity, solidarity and otherness. These questions that remain relevant in every community long after the tensions of the present conflict have been resolved."
ADHOC chose seven artists to include in the exhibit: Matt Fineout, architect, Edge Studio (Pittsburgh) with Franz Schnaas, graphic designer/artist (Los Angeles); Chris Morris and Robert Lipson architects, Rockwell Group (New York) with Evan Rose, urban designer, SMWM (San Francisco); Steve Flusty, urban geographer, University of Southern California (Los Angeles) with Cale Peeples, illustrator/web developer (Mountain View, Calif.).
The teams were given only a few parameters: spend a maximum of five hours and produce ideas to spur dialogue rather than polished pieces. Each team was also asked to provide documentation of the collaborative process -- emails, faxes and preliminary sketches, for instance -- in addition to the final piece.
The group also invited a range of designers and "thinkers" to submit short, individual essays on the topic of solidarity and otherness as it relates to the practice and process of design. Erik Adigard from Wired, Trystan Bates of Felissimo Design House, and Glen Helfand of Art Forum weighed in along with several members of ADHOC's board.
Yves Behar, founder of fuseproject and an ADHOC board member, claims he's content with the project, noting that the site received over 180,000 hits in the first month US/THEM was online. In general, he says, "Response to the site and our efforts has been positive. Comments of those who join the e-mail list mostly say that they are happy to see inter-disciplinary exhibits that focus on design/design responsibility."
"As designers were are required to be aware of the subjective, variable values of the symbols we engage in manipulating and dispersing via our designs, especially when issues at stake are of a human rights or a socio-political nature," says Schnaas.
Design obviously serves many purposes, responsible or not. In the past few commercial Web years, most designers were following the money and designing to promote or sell. But September 11 threw perspectives into question. Everyone, from high-minded thinkers to low-minded politicians to the everyman, began as immediately as the original Big Bang to re-examine priorities, philosophies and directions.
US/THEM may just be a gratuitous project, a group of elitist, privileged designers coming together to display their elitist, privileged thoughts in a pretentious, self-serving manner. Maybe. But reading some of the commentaries, it's clear that at least some of the participants are just trying to cope both personally and professionally with this "new world disorder" in the best way they know how.