Far from being a decisive moment in the lifetime of a person that exists in a separatist society where white is white and black is black and the grey areas in between will not manage to coexist with either one or the other… that one person will fall into one of the three… And wants to elude (and be part of) all (at the same time).
Art: self-expression. That’s where a generous amount of interpretation is required on the part of the audience. The who, what, where, when, why and how of the artist and the work in question suddenly become focal points for the generating forces of meaning to be applied to the work. All points of view become part of the discourse. All meanings become possible. All interpretations gather strength.
Design: communication. The set of points/adjectives/ideals/values to be generated and communicated must be received by the target audience in the same way. This generates an imminent discourse of success or failure of the work (that goes beyond the issue of aesthetics – the work must look good or be interesting to the eyes of the targeted audience). There is no interpretation required in an artistic sense. The must be no interpretation left with open guidelines – the only level of interpretation acceptable is the discovery of the meaning of the work, thus its communicative aspect.
The Grey Area: When art is designed (interesting interplay here) to say something is it art or design? Is it design designed to be read as art? Or maybe it is just bad design that requires interpretation because the message is simply not clear enough? Or maybe it is art that unwillingly steers the audience far too much towards a unique interpretation?
Why bother.
Well made art, like well made design, like well made (place definition here) are simply the triumph of the area they belong to. If the separatist nature of society doesn’t fail us here, that grey area (also known as, place definition here) should then be a mix of the two; a communicative brand of art / an artsy brand of design. Art that can function ans design /design that can be read as art. Probably the grey area is as big as the more easily defined art and design areas… and the fringes of the transitional points where art goes grey and grey goes design are fuzzy enough to provoke academic discourses to last quite a while.
In the end which is which? On the extremes, art is clearly art and design is certainly design. The grey area is the infinitely interesting and thought provoking grey area that defies definition and begs to differ from the establishment. It is an anti-art, anti-design creativity bubble with fuzzy edges… it is a pro-art, pro-design creativity bubble with fuzzy edges… it is everything and nothing… it is food for thought for both its neighbors. It is inspirational.
It is what I’d love to do.
