The Pixel as Property Process Book by David Schnitman

The Pixel as Property Process Book

2-3

This work is not copyrighted. Please feel free to copy, borrow, steal, reproduce, edit, remix, version, recreate or plagiarize this work.

Image and Reality. 12 - 13. Reflect One. 14 - 15.

Proposal One. 16 - 17.

Reflect Three. 38 - 39.

Empire and Intellectual Property. Page 26 - 27.

Reflect Two. 20 - 21.

Table of Praxis

Reflection Four. 58 - 59.

Literature Review One. 50 - 51.

Reflection Five. 76 - 77.

Proposal Two. 36 - 37.

Literature Review Two. 86 - 87.

Proposal Three. 104 - 105. 11

Table of Practice

Damaged Damagedlight lightbulb bulb Damaged light bulb base extractor: base extractor: base extractor: Visual Abstract. 30 - 33

Patent Overlays. 22 - 25.

9 10

Possession. 46 - 49.

Pushing Pixels. 42 - 43.

Layers of Control. 40 - 41.

To Represent... 64 - 65.

Not Gotham. Page W

O Broken Telephone. 52 - 55.

Mickey Mouse. 82 - 83.

Mouse Index. 96 - 99. 13

Image and Reality â&#x20AC;&#x153;In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.â&#x20AC;? Jorge Luis Borges

Reflect One In our meeting in late spring, Roderick made a remark that continues to weigh on me. After I expressed interest in a thesis devoted to subject matter dealing with philosophy, Roderick remarked that design does not have philosophy. As a young practice, design merely has reflection. At the moment we are in, design is a service and design critique is barely Socratic. At the point when we seriously ask what it means to design, we have begun a practice of philosophy. The questions surrounding a philosophy of design are ones that I continue to be interested in. Questions including: What are the first principle, or the foundation, of a design philosophy? What is the relation between the thingin-itself, and its representation? And lastly, what are the consequences of the role of designers-asproducers, in a world where access to tools is available to everyone? These are some of the questions I’d like to concern myself with as starting points that inform my practice this year. Their relevancy will be illustrated in this first reflection assignment, in relation to the essays by Blauvelt and Vignelli. In his Keynote Address the modernist designer Massimo Vignelli introduces a symposium on the history of graphic design with a “shopping list of needs” for the industry 1. Some of the items necessary include: more design history, more communication theory, more criticism, more documentation, more culture and so onand so forth. It is easy to sympathize with Vignelli perhaps only out of fear that design will forever perpetuate a “state of ignorance” with “...a continuous stream of little designers...and paste-up people”. If we are to give design a foundation, and perhaps even escape the

“continuous stream” then it is necessary to escape this shadow world and reflect more critically on our own practice. 2 In addition to Vignelli’s call simply for “more” reflection, perhaps an asterisk should be added. What is missing from a philosophy of design is not content that informs the theory, per se, but a critical and foundational core, or a first principle that grounds any kind of design philosophy. We have enough data, as millions of images are already circulated on the internet, available in books, and so on. The problem comes with being able to review, understand and comment on this material in a critical fashion. Returning to Vignelli’s metaphor of escaping the “continuous stream”, fear regarding the difficult emergence of a new philosophy was once echoed by a young Immanuel Kant. In a handwritten comment, scrawled into his own copy of the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime Kant notes, “Everything goes past like a river and the changing taste and the various shapes of men make the whole game uncertain and delusive. Where do I find fixed points in nature, which can not be moved by man, and where can I indicate the markers by the shore to which he ought to adhere?” 3 Andrew Blauvert’s 2011 Tool (Or, Post-Production for the Graphic Designer) 4 explores the relationship between the designer and their tools. Blauvert mentions how the introduction of the personal computer instituted a paradigm shift for the profession of graphic design. The open access to the tools of graphic design (both software and hardware) meant that “...the traditional gatekeeping function of the profession was eroded and ...

1. Vignelli, Massimo. Keynote Address. 1983. 2. Bloom, Allan, trans. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books, 1968. 193.

[eventually] circumvented”. This is turn changed the value of design, which immediately shifted to the realm of conception. Craft had been lost and the designers job was reassigned as a “primarily...managerial” activity. The role of designer-ascreator was supplanted with designer-as-producer. Without authorship in the content of the imagery, the designer instead edits, remixes, and reinterprets in a world where pastiche and bricolage are king. As predicted by Vignelli in the previous essay, the consequences of designers-as-producers will mean that the next fifty years will be characterized by the idea that “meaning is more important than form.” Only afterwards will a “state of balance between form and content” perhaps emerge. It is my view that perhaps there is a space for a return to form (literally) in the tools we create ourselves. As Blauvert notes “After all, the computer is...a tool for creating tools”. Which is why Reas and Fry’s open source language, Processing, has tremendous potential. The realm of data visualization, and generative design, necessitates the balance between form and content, as the two are dependant on each other to meaningfully communicate. When form follows data, content without form is blind, and form without content is empty. The second question asked in the introduction, namely “What is the relation between the thingin-itself, and its representation?” Has no obvious relation to the aforementioned texts, but is nonetheless critical to a philosophy of design, and even underlies the entire practice of graphic design. First let us consider one valuable definition of graphic design which posits that "design is the interface between the individual and information". This definition sees design as the collection, categorization, editing, and display of information. All elements dealt with by designers are units of information. Be it typographic information in a text or statistical data in a visualization. What is important to underscore is that all these units of datum, despite their variety, are simply representa-

tions of various phenomenon in the sensory world. A typographic message is a representation of a concept or thing (as described in semiotics), while an image is a representation of a sensory object. This relationship between representation and the thing represented, is reminiscent of Alfred Korzybski's statement that "the map is not the territory". Instead the map is only a representation of the territory. This distinction is critical to the practice of graphic design, and to the development of a design philosophy because of its clear connection to the metaphysical relation between phenomenon and noumenon. In Kantian philosophy, phenomenon is the world of sensory information, and noumenon being the realm of the thing-in-itself which is supposedly unknowable. In the presence of a table we are acquainted with its colour, shape, texture and so on. But our knowledge of the table is not direct, so if for instance the colour of the table changes depending on light in the room, and we never become familiar with the "true" colour of the table. No further data outside of our sense-knowledge is therefore possible. If we return to the metaphor of the map and the territory, the realm of phenomenon is the map with which we are familiar via sense experience, while the territory is the realm of the noumenon whose true features are not within our capacity of understanding. This connection between representation as phenomenon, and thing represented as noumenon, is worthy of greater reflection to form the connections between theory and practice.

3. Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. Berkley: University of California, 2003. 8. 4. Blauvert, Andrew. 2011 Tool (Or, Post-Production for the Graphic Designer). 2011.

Proposal One For my thesis project I am interested in investigating a potential philosophy for graphic design. At this point, it seems that a philosophy of graphic design rests on the nature of representation and the accompanying relation between image and reality.

assignments will give me the opportunity to consider theory more substantially. Practice will allow me to create a visual methodology with books, prints, information visualizations and the creation of new tools I make myself (with Processing).

Contextually, this subject relates to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;map / territory relationâ&#x20AC;?, where the map is not the territory itself, but only a representation. A philosophy of graphic design might situate itself somewhere between the field of aesthetics (the philosophy of art) and ontology (the philosophy of being). Additionally semiotics, which includes the relation between sign and signifier is also worth exploring, particularly for its connection to language. Some relations of representation also are invested in notions of objectivity, truth and neutrality as found in the realm of scientific illustration and cartography.

The goal of this thesis will be two-fold. First, my intent is to use my thesis as a step towards a potential philosophy of graphic design. Second, I am interested in graphic design that challenges accepted paradigms and that which we take for granted. For example, representations that persist not because of their content, but as historical residue that are asking to be dismantled.

In terms of process I will attempt to create a unity between theory and practice. Theory will allow me to engage the subject matter informationally, politically and philosophically. Writing outside of the Reflection

My sources will include philosophers, artists, designers, statisticians and political theorists including but not limited to: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Russell, Magritte, Borges, Wark, Tufte, Fry and Reas.

Hacker Manifesto â&#x20AC;&#x153;When information in turn becomes a form of private property, workers are dispossessed of it, and must buy their own culture back from its owners. The whole of time, time itself, becomes a commodified experience...Like all forms of property, intellectual property enforces a relation of scarcity. It assigns a right to a property to an owner at the expense of non-owners, to a class of possessors at the expense of the dispossessed.â&#x20AC;? McKenzie Wark

Reflect Two In his short story “Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote” Jorge Luis Borges describes an author’s attempt to copy Cervantes’ Don Quixote. That is, his attempt not to compose a new Quixote but to compose the Quixote itself 1. Despite his best efforts the new copy ends up different from the original. The point being made is that difference is the limit to repetition. The copy cannot become the thing copied, else it would no longer be it’s representation. This relationship is similar to the process of industrial production wherein “every production is...formalized and repeated on the basis of its representation. To produce is to repeat...to differentiate.” 2 To produce on the basis of a representation is to make copies from a plan or schematic. Making the material object is an expression of its initial immaterial representation, and thus to produce based on a plan is an issue of representation. While it is understood that the copy will never be the thing copied, structures within the law are established to ensure authorization of the ability to make copies. The realm of intellectual property trademarks, patents and copyright - assigns rights of property to the owners not only over the original, but over the ability to produce further copies. Within intellectual property, representations become property, enforcing scarcity of information since graphic forms, words and ideas are privatized. Is-

1. Borges, Jorge Luis. “Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote” in Labyrinths. N.p.: New Directions, 2007. 39. 2. Wark, McKenzie. A Hacker Manifesto. Havard University Press. 2004. [09]. 3. Marx, Karl. Karl Marx Early Writings. Translated by T.B Bottomore. New York, US: McGraw Hill, 1964. 25.

sues of intellectual property relate to questions on the nature of property not only in name. When information is commodified as property, the owner possesses information at the expense of the dispossessed. What is property? Or what is at stake when information can be owned? In his text, “On the Jewish Question” Karl Marx remarks on the limits of the right of property. “The right of property is, therefore, a right to enjoy one’s fortune and to dispose of it as one will; without regard for other men and independently of society. It is the right of self-interest.” This conception leads to conflict inasmuch as “it leads every man to see in other men, not the realization, but rather the limitation of his own liberty.” 3 In the sphere of intellectual property, representations manifest themselves as a form of property. This can be observed in “representative drawings” in patent law which are optional illustrations of the product being patented. These drawings and other representations act as the boundaries between two pieces of land as marked by a fence. This fence encloses certain forms, words, and ideas as property with legal ownership. And since property makes us see others as the “limitations of [our] own liberty”, anyone working towards a common goal is taken as an

enemy or trespasser on private property. Intellectual property manifests itself as a territory for human conflict, or class conflict when “workers are dispossessed of [information], and must buy their own culture back from its owners.” 4 Unlike material property, information is unique in that it need not suffer the fetters of scarcity if freed from private ownership. 5 What, then, is the connection between intellectual property and graphic design? In one sense the connection is an explicit one, since an entire area of intellectual property (trademarks) revolve around the ownership of forms, words, graphic symbols and logos. The other connection has to do with the increasing “informatization” of the economy. As employment moves from industry to service jobs, the practice of graphic design changes to a service which manipulates symbols and information with a computer in order to “problem solve” 6. The next step is to begin considering issues of representation within intellectual property through the collection, manipulation, and delineation of graphic elements and the process of making. The hope is that this process will reveal the final vertex that facilitates our understanding of relationships of representation within the sphere of intellectual property.

4. Wark. A Hacker Manifesto. [014]. 5. Ibid. [021]. 6. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. N.p.: Harvard University Press, 2001. 283.

Intellectual Property & Empire

Remix “Whether text or beyond text, remix is collage; it comes from combining elements of RO culture; it succeeds by leveraging the meaning created by the reference to build something new. Images or sounds collected from realworld examples become “paint on a palette”... When you “mix these symbolic things together” with something new, you create...“something new that didn’t exist before.” Lawrence Lessig

VISUAL ABST-

RACT VISUAL

When proposing that I wanted to look at representation as thesis topic, I received comments that I was â&#x20AC;&#x153;conflating theory with practice.â&#x20AC;? I then narrowed my focus to intellectual property as an area where representation is problematized. Following the first in class charette, this was the first work I created dealing with my new area of focus. In dealing with issues of representation and intellectual property, I wanted to portray a single object (a lightbulb) from a number of prespectives.

As image, video, icon, patent descrition, line drawing and so on. Playing with the familiar layout of overlaid windows on a screen, I used a mouse to guide eye movement. Looking back on this abstract, it surprises me how much it connects to my proposal at the end of semester. The backlit environment, the mouse and layers of representation are all themes that came up throughout the semester in time based media, books, code and other works documented in this codex.

Proposal Two For my thesis project I am interested in investigating relations of representation within the realm of intellectual property. When systems of law are set up to enforce possession of forms, words, and ideas, graphic design acts as a force to uphold ownership. Moreover, when information is commodified as property, the owner possesses information at the expense of the dispossessed. Contextually, my thesis will examine how representations work within the domain of IP to enforce the law. A thesis on intellectual property might situate itself somewhere within Marxist or anarchist notions of property. The idea of information as property is also worth contrasting with the copyleft movement, creative commons, open source programs and the free software culture. This leads me to process, where I will begin by focusing on the relationships of representation and the process of abstraction. I intend to showcase the levels of abstraction between a physical object and its accompanying representation, for example how graphic symbols and words can become property (i.e. Apple owning the word â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;). I also intend to label, reveal and make explicit varying relations of ownership which are often overlooked. Practice will allow me to create a visual

methodology with books, prints, films, and information visualizations while participating in the open source movement through the creation of new tools I make myself with Processing. Form will allow me to engage the subject matter aesthetically, politically and philosophically. I am interested in graphic design that challenges accepted paradigms of ownership. For example, designers often support copyright out of convention, even if their practice might benefit from dismissing this form of private ownership. By carrying out this thesis I hope to identify the role graphic design plays in protecting private property. My intended outcome is to make the viewer reconsider their relationship to copyright, and the limitations imposed on design through copyright. My sources will include philosophers, artists, designers, statisticians and political theorists including but not limited to: Marx, Lessig, Stallman, Lazzarato, Borges, Barnbrook, Venezky, Wark, Tufte, Fry and Reas. More specifically, the political theorists will inform my critique of intellectual property, while the open source programmers will inform how the work can be distributed.

Reflect Three When the class was discussing the role of graphic design as a tool to uphold private ownership, the following question was raised: “is graphic design is really enforcing ownership, or is it merely playing by the rules?” In my view there is little distinction between the two methods of control. To play by the rules is to participate in their practice, and administer their usage. In her text Eichmann in Jerusalem, the philosopher Hannah Arendt argues that evil manifests itself not as a demonic monster, but instead through the actions of ordinary individuals uncritically following the rules 1. It is in this fashion that graphic design imposes, upholds and maintains relationships of ownership within intellectual property since it follows the rules.

In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Karl Marx explains his concept of alienated labour:

In the last reflection, I argued that intellectual property can be a space for interpersonal and class conflict when we see others as limitations to our liberty, or as trespassers on our private (intellectu al) property. It is also worth examining how private ownership can create conflict within the individual. If a designer is employed by an organization, the product and copyright of his work are owned by their employer. In other words “the worker puts his life into the object, and his life then belongs no longer to himself but to the object,” 2. When the product of our work is not our own, it acts as an outside power opposed to us.

This estrangement leads to the alienation of an individual from their active life, from external nature, from their own body and from others. Marx goes on to argue that private property is the consequence of alienated labour when a non-producer owns the product of production 4. The alienation of labour upholds ownership, not only in graphic design but in all areas of production. However, graphic design has potential to bring these issues of ownership to light by highlighting that which is overlooked and formalizing it.

This fact expresses merely that the object which labour produces – labour’s product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labour is labour which has been embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labour. Labour’s realization is its objectification. Under these economic conditions this realization of labour appears as loss of realization for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage to it; appropriation as estrangement,as alienation.3

1. Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York, US: Penguin Classics, 2006. 252. 2. Marx, Karl. Karl Marx Early Writings. Translated by T.B Bottomore. New York, US: McGraw Hill, 1964. 122. 3. Ibid. 122. 4. Ibid. 131.

Lastly, what might a ‘free’ graphic design practice look like? Coincidentally keeping with the course schedule, it would probably look like an exquisite corpse, where designers adapt, modify, and improve existing designs in sequence. An exquisite corpse at a larger scale, without the barriers of physical proximity or constrained time, would be a graphic design worth witnessing.

5. Ibid. 189. 6. Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas. New York, US: Vintage. 2002. 12. 7. Stallman, Richard. Free Software, Free Society. Boston: GNU Press. 2002. Accessed Oct 6 2013, <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf>

† †‡ ‡† †‡ ‡ ‡† ‡† ‡† ‡† ‡† ††

Towards the end of the manuscript Marx comments “the meaning of private property - released from its alienation - is the existence of essential objects for man, as objects of enjoyment and activity,” 5. The germs of this activity can be found in the realm of free software. It is worth pausing for a moment to define our usage of the word ‘free’ because of the pitfalls associated with the word. As the law professor Lawrence Lessig remarks “so deep is the rhetoric of control with our culture that wherever one says a resource is ‘free’, most believe that a price is being quoted,” 6 . ‘Free’ software, as opposed to proprietary software, allows users to operate, read, fix, adapt, and improve software to suit their needs. To quote the computer programmer Richard Stallman, “‘free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’ not as in ‘free beer’” 7. Open source software, both as a platform for designing and as a political expression, is worth considering in the future when challenging notions of ownership within copyright.

†‡ †† ‡‡ †‡ †‡ †‡ †‡ †‡ †‡ †

p y

c d

p y

o n

Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas. New York, US: Vintage. 2002. 23.

c 42

In my MultipleDragItems code, I give a user three items (a headline, an image and body copy) and ask them to rearrange the composition of the three items until they are happy with the composition. The point being that each designer can approach owned content and rearrange it until the outcome is their property. This piece of code acts like design software in a reduced form. What kind of system of production and value does design operate within if reorganized pixels constitute property? Why is a property relation for design accepted and upheld? The 'Pushing Pixels' code was my first attempt this semester to generate a participant exercise to give me insight into design practice and the issues I was focusing on. I would later return to the 'Pushing Pixels' code as a way to record mouse activity and map of graphic design labour and therefore design property.

In The Future of Ideas Lawrence Lessig cites Yochai Benkler’s theory of communication layers. Any system of communication, Lessig argues, is organized into layers of content, code and physical. Content is what gets communicated, code is layer of the logic and physical is the material layer across which communications travel. Lessig makes the point that each of these layers can be controlled or free. Graphic design as a practice operates within controlled layers of communication. The computers we work on are owned, the software we work within is proprietary, and the content we display is often not our own (using the photography of others, typefaces we didn’t create, etc). What is left is for the designer to rearrange owned content in order to communicate. Due to the digital surface the designer works on, it can be said that they are responsible for “pushing pixels”to communicate.

y c

s d

o c

a e o

n o

te c

n n

t te h

n y

t s

l e

background(255); image(image,0,0);

void draw() {

void setup() { size(370, 577); image = loadImage("pixel-image.png"); circleX = width/2+circleSize/2+10; circleY = height/2; rectX = width/2-rectSizeX-10; rectY = height/2-rectSizeY/2; titleX = width/2-titleSizeX+150; titleY = height/2-titleSizeY-150; ellipseMode(RADIUS); }

float rectX, rectY; // Position of square button float circleX, circleY; // Position of circle button float titleX, titleY; int rectSizeX = 157; // Diameter of rect int rectSizeY = 178; int circleSize = 60; // Diameter of circle int titleSizeX = 309; int titleSizeY = 107; boolean rectOver = false; boolean rectLocked = false; boolean circleOver = false; boolean circleLocked = false; boolean titleOver = false; boolean titleLocked = false; float rectxOffset = 0.0; float rectyOffset = 0.0; float circlexOffset = 0.0; float circleyOffset = 0.0; float titlexOffset = 0.0; float titleyOffset = 0.0; PImage image; } void mousePressed() { if ( circleOver ) { circleLocked = true; rectLocked = false; circleOver = true; rectOver = false; titleOver = false; titleLocked = false; fill(255, 255, 255); } else if ( rectOver ) { circleLocked = false; rectLocked = true; rectOver = true; circleOver = false; titleOver = false; titleLocked = false; fill(255, 255, 255); } else if ( titleOver ){ titleOver = true; titleLocked = true; circleLocked = false; rectLocked = false; rectOver = false; circleOver = false; } else { circleOver = rectOver = titleOver = false; }

fill(153); } } else { stroke(153); fill(153); titleOver = false; } rect(titleX, titleY, titleSizeX, titleSizeY);

if (mouseX > titleX-titleSizeX && mouseX < titleX+titleSizeX && mouseY > titleY-titleSizeY && mouseY < titleY+titleSizeY) { titleOver = true; if(!titleLocked) { stroke(255);

if (mouseX > circleX-circleSize && mouseX < circleX+circleSize && mouseY > circleY-circleSize && mouseY < circleY+circleSize) { circleOver = true; if(!circleLocked) { stroke(255); fill(153); } } else { stroke(153); fill(153); circleOver = false; } ellipse(circleX, circleY, circleSize, circleSize);

rect(rectX, rectY, rectSizeX, rectSizeY);

if (mouseX > rectX-rectSizeX && mouseX < rectX+rectSizeX && mouseY > rectY-rectSizeY && mouseY < rectY+rectSizeY) { rectOver = true; if(!rectLocked) { stroke(255); fill(153); } } else { stroke(153); fill(153); rectOver = false; }

void mouseReleased() { rectLocked = false; circleLocked = false; titleLocked = false; }

void mouseDragged() { if(rectLocked) { rectX = mouseX-rectxOffset; rectY = mouseY-rectyOffset; } else if (circleLocked) { circleX = mouseX-circlexOffset; circleY = mouseY-circleyOffset; } else if (titleLocked) { titleX = mouseX-titlexOffset; titleY = mouseY-titleyOffset;} }

}

titlexOffset = mouseX-titleX; titleyOffset = mouseY-titleY;

circlexOffset = mouseX-circleX; circleyOffset = mouseY-circleY;

rectxOffset = mouseX-rectX; rectyOffset = mouseY-rectY;

Exquisite Corpse

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // // / / / / / / / possession

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / /// / // / / / / // / / / / // / / / / / // / is

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /// / / / / // / / / / // / / / / / nine

/ / / / / / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / 48

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / tenths

/ / / / / // // / / / / / / / / / /// / / / / // / / / // / / / / / / of

/ // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / the

/ / // / // // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / law

/ / / // /// / / / / / / / / / / // / 49

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / 50

× &

□ □

Praxis

Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths.

Maurizio Lazzarato. Immaterial Labor.

Karl Marx. Early Writings.

Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri. Empire.

McKenzie Wark. A Hacker Manifesto.

Jonathan Barnbrooke. The Barnbrook Bible.

Literature Review One

† … Lawrence Lessig. The Future of Ideas

a Practice

Richard Stallman. Free Software, Free Society

# P Andrew Blauvelt. Tool.

Casey Reas & Ben Fry. Processing: A Programming Handbook.

BROKE b ro k TELEte le p PHONE ▲

▽

△

▷

►

▲

▽

◄

ENen -h on e E

△

▷

►

▷

▲

▽

△

◄

△

◄

►

▷

▼

△

▽

►

▲

▽

▷

◄

▲

▽

△

▷

►

▲

△ ▷

►

▷

▲

▽

△

◄

△

◄

►

▷

▼

△

▽

►

▲

▽

▷

◄ 57

Reflect Four In the last reflection, I asked what a ‘free’ graphic design practice might look like. It is worth restating that in the world of software, a product is ‘free’ when users can access the source code and modify, tweak, hack and adapt the code to suit their own needs. A piece of code evolving over time is similar to a design which gets modified sequentially as per an exquisite corpse. The limitations of the corpse are physical proximity and limited time, which could be transcended by making the exercise digital. This process is one I tried to simulate this week, as I work towards what a free graphic design might look like. I began by considering a reflective film as a projection surface. Last week, I used this film in a poster to ‘distance’ the viewer from passive enjoyment to critical reflection by simply engaging them narcissistically 1. The film made for an interesting substrate for its ability to frame, reflect and simulate a screen. Next, I researched open source code via openprocessing.org and modified existing code to warp, distort and animate text. Lastly I returned to Wark’s Hacker Manifesto to inform the content of the type I was working with. My hope was to create a display of ‘screens’ where a single sentence would be modified, both textually and typographically, like a game of broken telephone. The message would develop diachronically to simulate an iterative process. The next step would be to have designers other than myself engage in a digital exquisite corpse to illustrate a design process free of the fetters of private ownership.

This week I also returned to the idea of the hack as a tool for understanding a ‘free’ graphic design. Like an exquisite corpse, the hack builds off existing foundations and creates new expressions and possibilities. “By abstracting from nature, hacking produces the possibility of another nature, a second nature, a third nature, natures to infinity, doubling and redoubling.“ 2 The hack works best in the virtual realm, by creating these ‘double natures’ when digital information is copied without effecting the original. On the research side of my thesis, I’ve continued to study immaterial labour, the history of copyright, and the value of information in a post-industrial economy. Some of my findings are worth mentioning here. On the value of information as a resource, Johan Soderberg uses historical materialism to analyze contemporary production. He remarks that just as industrialization transformed agriculture, so too will the informatization of the economy colour and modify industrial production. The increasing centrality of information and the commodification of information within the economy create contractions when we try to contain information (as intellectual property does) given the intangible and inexhaustible quantities of information 3. Next, the Italian sociologist Maurizio Lazzarato’s article, Immaterial Labor, brings freelance design production into the fold of Marxist alienation. This worker acts as a kind of ‘intellectual proletariat’ when needed by the capitalist. And although they may own their work in the sense of copyright, their working existence can no longer distinguish life from leisure.

1. Bogad, L.M. “Alienation Effect.” Beautiful Trouble. Accessed October 14, 2013. http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/alienation-effect/. 2. Wark, McKenzie. A Hacker Manifesto. Havard University Press. 2004. [075]. 3. Soderberg, Johan. “Copyleft vs Copyright: A Marxist Critique.” First Monday. Accessed October 20, 2013 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/938/860

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ

Returning to the idea of digital information as commodity, Lazzarato notes, “the particularity of the commodity produced through immaterial labor...consists in the fact that it is not destroyed in the act of consumption, but rather it enlarges, transforms and creates the “ideological” and cultural environment of the consumer.” 4 Finally, a short blog post sent to me by Chris titled The Word “Remix” is Corny by Brad Troemel is worth contrasting with Lawrence Lessig’s notion of design as Remix. Lessig argues that since the content of a design is authored by others (typefaces by type designers, images from a photographer, etc) the designer is a kind of DJ that remixes existing content to make it their own. But as Troemel points out the danger of and A-to-B remix is that it is no longer challenges the original but simply reveres it by making it anew. “The remix is not confrontational; it’s a tribute of fandom, an admission that the first product was so good that it can be dressed up in a seemingly endless number of variants and still maintain its excellence”. (Troemel) The limits of an A-to-B remix suggest that the mix has a beginning, a middle and an end. In contrast Troemel suggests progressive versioning where we forget t he original sources and introduce new elements until the character of the work changes completely. The benefit of this versioning is a process, like the exquisite corpse, with a hazy beginning and no end.

4. Lazzarato, Maurizio. “Immaterial Labor” Radical Thought In Italty : A Potential Politics. Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. 2006. Accessed Oct 11 2013 http://www.e-flux.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.-Maurizio-Lazzarato-Immaterial-Labor.pdf 5. Troemel, Brad. “The Word “Remix” Is Corny.” Brad Troemel (blog). Entry posted October 17, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2013. http://main. bradtroemel.com/Writing/The%20Word.pdf.

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ

ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ

NOT

x B x C xD E x F x A

x O x P xQ R S xT N x a

x b

x c d

x f g

x x x x n o p q rstuv w x

5 6 7 8 9 64

Hoefler and Frere-Jones End User License Agreement (or EULA) makes it illegal for a user to add glyphs to existing fonts. Typography, unlike other artistic products are not copyrighted. Instead only the software of a font is protected (and often properietary). In order to challenge the properietary nature of type software it was necessary not only to make the EULA visible, but also to break its

GOT HAM

G H I Jx K xL Mx

T U V W XxY Zx

g h i j k

x l

x m

x x xy z 0 1 23 4 x

9 ( ) ! . , terms of use. NOT GOTHAM is the product of taking Gotham and distorting it manually, and reuploading that distortion onto a computer in place of the original. By printing out a type specimen of gotham, I was uphold to hold the typeface up to a mirror (literally) and distort it through the pores and wrinkles of the reflective sheet.

TO REPRE

ALW

TO PROD

DIFFER

ESENT IS

WAYS

DUCE A

RENCE

To represent is always to produce a difference.

To represent is always to produce a difference. To represent is always to produce a difference. Representations are only imperfect copies of the thing represented. Even if we create a representation that coincides point for point, we do not clone reality.“A likeness differs of necessity from what it represents. If it did not, it would be what it represents, and thus not a representation.” Mirrors are a useful medium to explore issues of

representation. As a substrate, they display an ever shifting likeness. Light, projected onto a flexible mirror, makes the representation fluid, free and a subject of our manipulations. To convey our message, the phrase “To represent is always to produce a difference.” is set in a ordinary sans serif (Benton Sans). We then are free to bend, twist, distort, extrude, animate, and create difference.

Wark. A Hacker Manifesto. [130].

To represent...

Alienation “The object which labour produces – labour’s product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer ... Labour’s realization is its objectification. Under these economic conditions this realization of labour appears as loss of realization for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage to it; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation.” Karl Marx

Mouse index © Borzu Talaie



Reflect Five



In his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Frankfurt school theorist Walter Benjamin notes that traditionally art played a ritual role within small ‘cults’ that venerated the art object 1. Under the conditions of mechanical reproduction the art object loses its unique ‘aura’ and can no longer be treated ritualistically. Instead the art object can now take on a political significance 2. Benjamin recognized the importance of industrial production in bringing about new artistic practices, including graphic design. The political thrust of industrially produced print objects is discussed in Régis Debray’s Socialism: A Life Cycle. Debray positions the typographer as the ideal socialist subject because they are simultaneously working class and intellectual labourers. Debray chronicles the print history of the socialist movement in books, newsprints and academe. Decray argues that the success of socialist culture was tied to its print legacy. “The story of communism...has been the tale of archivists and old papers.” 3 (As an aside, could it be more than coincidental that the ‘death of print’ coincided chronologically with the fall of the USSR?). For Debray, the ‘graphosphere’ world of print was more successful than the digital ‘videosphere’ world at formalizing class struggle because it immobilizes the individual by sitting them behind a screen. “...the finger that presses a button, fastforwarding a tape or disc, will never pose a danger to the establishment.” 4 What Debray fails to examine is the success of digital modes of resistance,

    

1. Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Accessed Nov 2, http://design.wishiewashie.com/HT5/WalterBenjaminTheWorkofArt.pdf 2. Ibid. 5. 3. Debray, Régis. Socialism: A Life Cycle. Accessed Oct 20. 9. http://newleftreview.org/II/46/regis-debray-socialism-a-life-cycle.



This brings me to Mickey Mouse. In researching the history of copyright law I came across the Copyright Term Extension Act which extended the copyright of works to 70 years after the author’s death in the United States. The act has derisively been called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act for twice extending the copyright term just before early Mickey cartoons, such as Steamboat Willy, entered the public domain.



such as the hacker class, or the need for digital resistance for a problem that is uniquely digital, like open source software’s resistance to proprietary software privatization.



Another facet of my critique of copyright came to my attention after reading Letter & Spirit by Dexter Sinister 5. Sinister recounts the history of Donald Knuth’s Metafont and uses the terminology ‘letter’ and ‘spirit’ to refer to the construction of a letter and its higher level abstraction. In a related sense, my critique is against both the letter of intellectual property (laws which facilitate artists being sued for using copyrighted works in parody) and the spirit of intellectual property (individual authors possessiveness).



My formal work this week has centered around the Mickey character as the icon of artistic copyright. Manipulating the animations of early Mickey cartoons have allowed me to show the extent that copyright has expanded in the last cen-

tury. A single gif, scaled five times to represent the five expansions to the American copyright term, echo and enlarge the animation to show the growing length of its ownership. Mickey also has an interesting connection to labour, as his design is centered around Fordist models of production. To illustrate, Mickey’s face and body are drawn entirely out of circles, while his hand only has three figures. “Financially, not having an extra finger in each of 45,000 drawings that make up a six and one half minute short has saved the Studio millions.” 6 In future designs, I will continue to work with the Mickey Mouse character as the symbol of representation protecting private ownership.

4. Ibid, 9. 5. Sinister, Dexter. Letter & Spirit. Accessed October 24. http://www.servinglibrary.org/read.html?id=24655 6. Walter E Disney. Accessed Nov 5. http://www.walteredisney.com/

Tools â&#x20AC;&#x153;The language of post-production speaks of sampling rather than appropriation, sharing as opposed to owning, formats instead of forms, curation (i.e. selection) over creation, and context as the prime determinant of form over rather than content. It is a culture of re-: remix, reformat, reshuffle, reinterpret, reprogram, reschedule, reboot, repost, recycle.â&#x20AC;? Andrew Blauvelt

1. Video Projector. http://4vector.com/free-vector/video-projector-clip-art-116642 2. Mirror: http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/ikea-instructions/21030-minde-mirror-instructions-annotated.html 3. Macbook Pro: http://vector.tutsplus.com/freebies/vectors/macbook-pro-freebie/ 4. Other Tools: http://vector.tutsplus.com/freebies/vectors/vectortuts-freebie-exclusive-stationery-vector-pack/

1930

Fiddli ne Crazy - First Mickey cartoon produced. First Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse

ÂŠ

d Clarabelle Cow appearance.

e Gallopin' Gaucho - First cartoon where Mickey and Minnie wear shoes.

The B

The C

amboat Willie - First Mickey cartoon with original sound.

The F

e Barn Dance

The S

The C

e Opry House - First cartoon where Mickey wears gloves, although not at the be-The G

nning - he only puts them on in order to play the piano.

hen the Cat's Away - First appearance of Kat Nipp. First cartoon where Mickey

ars gloves right from the beginning.

The P

Pione

Minni

e Barnyard Battle - First cartoon where Pete wears gloves. First cartoon with any

eech at all (the army major says "company!") 84

e Plow Boy - First appearance of Horace Horsecollar where Minnie wears gloves.

ing Around (a.k.a. Just Mickey)

Barnyard Concert

“Hot dogs! Hot dogs!”

Cactus Kid - First cartoon were Pete wears shoes.

Fire Fighters

Shindig - First cartoon were Clarabelle wears gloves, stands up, and wears a dress.

Chain Gang - First appearance of Pluto (unnamed).

Gorilla Mystery

Picnic - First appearance of Pluto.

eer Days

e y

ie's Yoo Hoo special cartoon made for the original Mickey Mouse Club.

Ă&#x2014;

Walter Benjamin, Author as Producer.

Maurizio Lazzarato. Immaterial Labor.

Âś

Praxis

Karl Marx. Early Writings.

Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri. Empire.

McKenzie Wark. A Hacker Manifesto.

ø † … Lawrence Lessig. The Future of Ideas

Practice

Literature Review Two

Lucy Suchman. Making Work Visible.

Richard Stallman. Free Software, Free Society

P # Casey Reas & Ben Fry. Processing: A Programming Handbook.

Andrew Blauvelt. Tool.

1.7 hours of pixel pushing. Recorded with IO Graph.

void setup() { size(370, 577); noStroke(); image = loadImage(“pixel-image.png”); titleImg = loadImage(“pixel-title.png”); textImg = loadImage(“pixel-text.png”); backgroundImg = loadImage(“background.png”);

ArrayList paths; boolean done = false; Path lastpath; boolean curved = false;

boolean showImage = true;

if (mouseX > titleX-titleSizeX && mouseX < titleX+titleSizeX && mouseY > titleY-titleSizeY && mouseY < titleY+titleSizeY) { titleOver = true; bodycopyOver = false; if(!titleLocked) {

rect(bodycopyX, bodycopyY, bodycopySizeX, bodycopySizeY); image(textImg,bodycopyX,bodycopyY);

if (mouseX > bodycopyX-bodycopySizeX && mouseX < bodycopyX+bodycopySizeX && mouseY > bodycopyY-bodycopySizeY && mouseY < bodycopyY+bodycopySizeY) { bodycopyOver = true; if(!bodycopyLocked) { fill(240); } } else { fill(255); bodycopyOver = false; }

rect(rectX, rectY, rectSizeX, rectSizeY); image(image,rectX,rectY);

if (mouseX > rectX-rectSizeX && mouseX < rectX+rectSizeX && mouseY > rectY-rectSizeY && mouseY < rectY+rectSizeY) { rectOver = true; if(!rectLocked) { fill(240); } } else { fill(255); rectOver = false; }

noStroke(); if(showImage == true){ image(backgroundImg,0,0);

lastpath = (Path) paths.get(paths.size()-1); // draw hint if (!done && lastpath.tail>0) { color hc = color(0, 0, 0, 50); stroke(hc); line(mouseX, mouseY, lastpath.lastPoint().x, last path.lastPoint().y); }

background(255); for (int i=0; i<paths.size(); i++) { Path path = (Path) paths.get(i); if (curved) { path.drawCurvedPath(); } else { path.drawPath(); } }

void draw() {

}

bodycopyX = width/2-bodycopySizeX+180; bodycopyY = height/2-bodycopySizeY+210; rectX = width/2-rectSizeX; rectY = height/2-rectSizeY/2-150; titleX = width/2-titleSizeX+150; titleY = height/2-titleSizeY+70; ellipseMode(RADIUS); paths = new ArrayList(); paths.add(new Path());

void mousePressed() { if ( circleOver ) { circleLocked = true; rectLocked = false; circleOver = true; rectOver = false; titleOver = false; titleLocked = false; fill(255, 255, 255); } else if ( rectOver ) { circleLocked = false; rectLocked = true; rectOver = true; circleOver = false; titleOver = false; titleLocked = false; fill(255, 255, 255); } else if ( titleOver ){ titleOver = true; titleLocked = true; circleLocked = false; rectLocked = false; rectOver = false; circleOver = false;

}

rect(titleX, titleY, titleSizeX, titleSizeY); image(titleImg,titleX,titleY); }

fill(240); } } else { fill(255); titleOver = false; }

100

void drawPath () { stroke(c); for (int i=0; i<tail-1; i++) { line(vertices[i].x, vertices[i].y, vertices[i+1].x, vertices[i+1].y); } } void drawCurvedPath() { stroke(c);

void keyPressed() { if((key == ‘H’) || (key == ‘h’)) {

void addVertex (Point p) { if (tail < 100) { vertices[tail] = p; tail++; } }

Path() { vertices = new Point[100]; tail = 0; strokeWeight(6); c = color(random(255), random(255), random(255), random(255)); }

// A collection of points to record a trace class Path { Point[] vertices; int tail; // the last point color c;

}

Point(float a, float b) { x = a; y = b; }

void mouseReleased() { rectLocked = false; circleLocked = false; titleLocked = false; if (mouseButton == RIGHT) done = true; if (done) return; Point _apoint = new Point(mouseX, mouseY); lastpath.addVertex(_apoint); }

void mouseDragged() { if(rectLocked) { rectX = mouseX-rectxOffset; rectY = mouseY-rectyOffset; } else if (circleLocked) { circleX = mouseX-circlexOffset; circeY = mouseY-circleyOffset; } else if (titleLocked) { titleX = mouseX-titlexOffset; titleY = mouseY-titleyOffset;} }

}

titlexOffset = mouseX-titleX; titleyOffset = mouseY-titleY;

circlexOffset = mouseX-circleX; circleyOffset = mouseY-circleY;

} else { circleOver = rectOver = titleOver = false; } rectxOffset = mouseX-rectX; rectyOffset = mouseY-rectY;

101

collection of x, y coordinates { // record x coordinate // record y coordinate

// constructor

// Point: a class Point float x; float y;

}

if (!done) return; if (key == ‘a’ || key == ‘A’) { curved = false; done = false; paths.add(new Path()); } if (key == ‘c’ || key == ‘C’) { curved = true; } if (key == ‘l’ || key == ‘L’) { curved = false; }

}

if((key == ‘S’) || (key == ‘s’)){ save(“picture1.tif”); println(“saved”);

}

if((key == ‘J’) || (key == ‘j’)) { showImage = true; curved = false; done = false; paths.add(new Path());

}

showImage = false; done = true; if (done) return; // otherwise Point _apoint = new Point(mouseX, mouseY); lastpath.addVertex(_apoint);

}

Point lastPoint() { if (tail<1) return null; //otherwise return vertices[tail-1]; }

}

noFill(); beginShape(); curveVertex(vertices[0].x, vertices[0].y); for (int i=0; i<tail; i++) { curveVertex(vertices[i].x, vertices[i].y); } curveVertex(vertices[tail-1].x, vertices[tail-1].y); endShape();

102

Fourteen Maps of Property â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided...he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.â&#x20AC;? John Locke The above pages show my return to my 'Pushing Pixels' code. This time around I added a function to record mouse presses and releases by plotting these actions as points in a vertex. By asking users to rearrange the existing elements until they were happy with the composition, I could use the drawing of their mouse movement as an index of design labour.

103

Reflect Six After reading the text ‘Material Metaphors’, Hayles’ notion of an inscription technology stuck with me. According to the author, an inscription technology is “a device [that]...initiates material changes that can be read as marks,” 1. In combining this idea with the contemporary means of production for a graphic designer, I thought about the keyboard and the mouse as possible inscription technologies for design labour. A line drawn by a pencil is an inscription or index of a pencil’s motion. Meanwhile, as I type these words, my actions on the keyboard are given an index in the letterforms that appear on screen. The mouse, however, has no similar index to speak of. In returning to my ‘Pushing Pixels’ code I took the existing exercise as an opportunity to create an index of mouse activity, and in turn, design labour. By asking users to move around three existing elements (title, text and image) until they were happy with the composition, I was able to record their mouse clicks and mouse releases. I then returned to the classic definition of private property as outlined by the Liberal philosopher John Locke which can be summarized as follows: when we put our work into something, it becomes our property 2. This means, given the current realities of design activity as immaterial labour, along with the computer’s place as the primary tool for design production, that the outcomes of reordering existing content with a mouse are treated as a form of intellectual property. Hence the notion of mouse movement as maps of property.

As a designed artefact, this piece of code is an illustration of two ideas. The first, made use of often in data visualization, is the idea of collapsing time spatially to visualize information. For instance a line graph representing a rate of change over time, using the space of the graph to show change. Or in my case, intentionally showing the mouse activity as a single frame instead of as a video by giving us a static index of the designer’s mouse activity. The second idea is one of making work visible 3. In doing so we can represent the politics of organization surrounding work and the products of said work. In my case specifically, revealing the labour of a designer and how their design outcomes are subsequently treated as private property. The reasons for treating a design as property despite infinite reproducibility via digital technology lead us to economic considerations. Are designs only copyrighted so that the authors and institutions can profit? Possibly. But this idea leads us to another consideration that is worth exploring. Namely the position of the graphic designer in a market economy. Designers are quick to comment that their value as employees isn’t simply knowing software or ‘pushing pixels’, but in conceptual thinking. The next step is to design another small exercise and examine the designer’s role as the creators of value within a market system.

1. Hayles, N. Katherine. Writing Machines. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. 24. 2. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Cambridge: Hackett, 1980. 25. 3. Suchman, Lucy. Making Work Visible. Accessed Nov 18 2o13, <http://guzdial.cc.gatech.edu/hci-seminar/uploads/1/Suchman’s%20Making%20Work%20Visible.pdf>

104

This leads me to some final points which deserve comment. Ideas of the creation of value by designers lead me to comment on the fetishistic properties of graphic design production. Originally, the term fetishism comes from religious practices which ascribed human properties to nature. However, in Marxist theory a commodity is fetishistic when it obfuscates the social relations between people in favour of the relation between things 4. For instance advertising is inherently fetishistic when it suggests a relation between consumers and commodities instead of social relations between people. The economically imposed fetishism of an artform, in this case writing, is described by German philosopher Walter Benjamin. ‘‘Printing, having found in the book a refuge in which to lead an autonomous existence, is pitilessly dragged out onto the street by advertisements and subjected to the brutal heteronomies of economic chaos. This is the hard schooling of its new form’ 5. Benjamin, and his text ‘Author as Producer’ was ‘pitilessly dragged’ to the realm of graphic design in Ellen Lupton’s text ‘Designer as Producer’. In it Lupton argues that the desktop revolution in design “... offers designers a new crack at materialism, a chance to re-engage the physical aspects of our work.” In many ways Lupton’s wish has become a reality as graphic design practice has seen a massive return to material processes in screen prints, risograph printing and so on. Here is where I disagree with Lupton’s interpretation of Benjamin’s view. If writers in the twentieth century learned to typeset to become the masters of their tools, then designers in the twenty first century shouldn’t return to old material processes but instead learn to command existing and relevant means of production. Simply put, if a designer’s primary tool is the computer, then they can gain command over that tool by learning how to code.

4. Encyclopedia of Marxism. Fetishism. <http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/e.htm#fetishism> 5. Lupton, Ellen. Designer as Producer. Accessed Nov 19 2013, <https://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_designer_as_producer>

105

Proposal Three For my thesis project I am interested in investigating relations of representation and ownership within the realm of copyright. Contemporary graphic design practice involves the manipulation of existing content into new arrangements. I am interested in exploring how copyright upholds a property relation between designers and their work in which representations must navigate. Contextually, my thesis will examine how the letter and spirit of the law manifest themselves through representations. A thesis on intellectual property might situate itself somewhere within Marxist or anarchist notions of property. The idea of design as property is also worth contrasting with the copyleft movement, remix culture, and open source culture. My focus will be on the current realities of design production, specifically situating graphic design practice as a form of immaterial labour which produces cultural products. This leads me to process, where I will begin by focusing on the relationships of representation as mediated through designers actions and decisions. By recording design labour, I intend to label, reveal and make explicit varying relations of property which are often overlooked. Practice will allow me to create a visual methodology with books, prints, films, and participatory exercises involving the creation of new tools made

106

with Processing. Form will allow me to engage the subject matter aesthetically, informationally, politically and philosophically. I am interested in graphic design that challenges accepted paradigms of ownership that we take for granted. For example, designers often support copyright out of convention, even if their practice might benefit from dismissing this form of private ownership. By carrying out this thesis I hope to identify the role graphic design plays in protecting private property. My intended outcome is to make the viewer reconsider their relationship to copyright, and the limitations imposed on design through copyright. My sources will include philosophers, artists, designers, statisticians and political theorists including but not limited to: Marx, Lessig, Wark, Lazzarato, Borges, Stallman, Fry and Reas. More specifically, the political theorists will inform my critique of copyright, while the designers and programmers will inform how the work will be produced and distributed.

X: 5.9888 in Y: 5.6902 in

107

w c

. p

2 e

2 .

t 8

u .

p s

r n t

w c

. p

The n

Pixel Property:

_ and

. 1

j 2

3 p

g _

Representation 7 s

t 8

4 u

r p

l i s d Ownership

n t

Acknowledgements The creation of my work this semester would have been impossible without the help of certain individuals that I would like to acknowledge here. First, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to thank my friends Dave Caterini, Ansel Schmidt, Chris Lange, Emma Novotny and Joana Patrasc for their continual feedback throughout the semester. Thank you to the team at ALSO Collective for their feedback and encouragement. A personal thank you goes out to my family for their support and Olivia Luyt for her continual patience with me. Thank you to Kathy Kiloh, Patricio Davila and Chris Lee without whom the research component of this thesis would have been misguided and lost. Thanks to Steve Szigeti and Fanny Chevalier, for remunerating me for pushing pixels. Lastly, a special thank you to Roderick Grant for advising me this semester. Without him this thesis would have been very, very different.

…