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Interview with Michael Worthington - April 99 marius: any immediate thoughts on electronic design - what's electronic mean when applied to design anyway? michael: i remember seeing a tattoo artist called "the electric rembrandt" always thought that sounded really exciting! i guess i see two aspects of the electronic in design: obviously the tools that are all pervasive, fuelled by electricity, though this always seems to be more about the computer than about electronic per se. the second would be more related to electronic music, that damned infectious blippy music that we euros seem to have a liking for (that is still finding a hard time living here in the USA). how that is reflected in design and how "techno-culture" is represented and now becoming mainstream within design/culture. we should be living in the electronic era not the nuclear era. i've never interacted with nuclear technology. can't say i think its had huge impact on my life, i can imagine living with out it. but electricity...everything i hold dear would dissappear... i think that almost everything i do in terms of design could be called "electronic" very loosely, since its all made on the computer, its all fuelled by electricity. I would never have drawn a typeface (one useable by others) if it wasn't for the computer. I thinkits electronic all the time (design), both when i might make a font, or design a web site, or design abook. i don't think one is more "electronic" than another. One is obviously more screen based, I guess with the web the electricity (or rather its manifestation ) is more visible as the glowing neon of the screen. marius: do you subscribe to the "it's just another tool" school of thought, or do you feel the computer has brought anything qualitatively different to design, something it didn't have before? michael: it is just another tool, but at the same time its such an important tool as to change the way you think, work, live your life, society etc. its certainly the biggest change in my lifetime. what else has been invented in your lifetime that has had such impact on your life?? marius: I don't think the compact disk format quite qualifies. you mentioned the electronic in connection with electronic music: when I was in a teenager in the mid-eighties I used to be really passionate about music with big lyrics - pink floyd etc, big concept stuff. now I'm almost exclusively into electronic music, with vocals being incidental. any thoughts on electronic sound? I've noticed a lot of british designers whose work I like (yours included) tend to have a strong relationship to music. is that a brit thing or is it ubiquitous in the states as well? michael: i think its more of a brit thing. in the 60s there was this rise of the designer (and more so the photographer, david bailey, see Antononi's Blow-Up etc) as a cool cultural icon: a profession where hip working class boys could be a litle bit artsy but make money too. there's still a trail off from that, actually a resurgence since Tony Blair has been meeting with not just pop stars but designers too (tomato for example) but think about it. that old McLuhan stuff: in the post industrial age we don't make products anymore, we make "images". it makes sense. thats definitely an aspect of elecronic design, in the screen based sense: it doesn't really exist, no truth, no closure, no power??? design in the aether. concerning music: i actually used to try and make definite connections with music: trying to graphically represent it etc i used to be really into all that noisy guitar stuff. post punk. but also all the early on U sound stuff (precursor to drum and bass). i think the only consistent aspect to music i listen to is actually dub. its the one thing i've always listened to since i was 16 and its never gone away. interesting parallell in terms of design. its alll about the spaces. all about what isn't there. i like that. marius: how about time? would you say time-based design is more inherent in electronic media or is your print work also "4d"? in the "G1" book neville brody and lewis blackwell put out they categorised everything to 2d, 3d and 4d but ultimately seemed to agree there is no real difference except on the surface. michael: print is 4d too. and 3d. on screen is 2d and 4d. time without dimension. i see incredible similarities between print and the web, in terms of temporal design, structure, flow, narrative etc. both have specific advantages and disadvantages in comparison. no point trying to lump them together. they are different beasts. to me one interesting fact is that new media has redefined print. print is now fetishised, having to concentrate on what it can do better than on-screen: all those huge art books, the lsat 5 whitney books have all been these massive tomes. look at bruce mau/rem koolhaus book, or irma boom's private commission book. print is competing on its own terms. BTW most of my design strategies for print come from methodologies and processes developed for working on screen. that cross pollination really interests me. but that happens from books film and music too. marius: that's interesting - I've lately been having discussions about web being more like TV because of the updating over time aspect, although that's more to do with the editorial work than perhaps design. a good web site needs an image producer and an editor just like a tv station. michael: i don't think the web's like TV. there's physical similarities but experiently and socially they seem really different to me. i think the web "could" be like TV. one day. but right now so much emphasis is on information and amounts of information, not about entertainment, but about fact. though there are rare exceptions (jodi for example) but for me the internet is much more like a library, or "contemporary cultural research facility" (mainly fact with some pop entertainment). I don't think now that we use the internet in a similar way to TV. when words dissappear it'l help. when every element breaths, even those resting, it'll help. until then there's no transportation to another place, and that puts us back ni the realm of information and function rather than escapism and the escape to otherness that TV/cinema offers. marius: do you feel print is a fetish for you personally? if so, why - and what needs does it satisfy that you don't get on the screen. michael: i miss the closure. i like things to be over. perhaps i miss the tension of finality. if you make a mistake on the web you just fix it. there is a reality (permanance maybe better) to print. right now the web is fleeting, moving, growing, nebulous: i like this, but in print i like the finality, the seriousness. maybe i'm getting old. i like to have more than 216 colors to choose from. i like to have differnt formats. i like a solid and reliable time base. i like texture. i like to hold the thing. i like seeing a stack of books all the same. i like the fast load time for big images. of course there's also hyge list of what i likek better about the web, or what i like better about motion graphics. you have to keep telling yourself "its not a competition."
Michael Worthington. MFA CalArts 1995. BFA St Martins London, 1991. Current activities:
Originally written for "Visuelt" 2.99 (translated into Norwegian). |
