Hello, your work is complete. I am sorry I had some technical issues. if you have any question on the work let me know. Thank you.
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Running Head: COPYING AND WRITING

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COPYING AND WRITING
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COPYING AND WRITING

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Page 22-23
Programming in the sense of digital code, its applications, and the networks that mobilize
those applications are only the most literal and elemental connections between some
contemporary work in this vein and historical precedents. But logic of programming, the role in
which it places the designer-as the meta-conceiver of scenarios and the builder of connections for
their realization- has exceeded literal and immediate suggestions in its influence in the self
understanding of graphic design.
JS- another intriguing topic you mentioned is the invention of devices. It makes me think
of one of my favorite artists/designers, Bruno Munari, and his book Munari’s Machines. It’s
almost a children’s book for adults and contains instructions for building fantastical and
nonsensical mechanical structures, for instance a mechanism for sniffing artificial flowers or a
tail wager for idle dogs. Also an essay titled ‘theoretical reconstructions for imaginary objects’.
In this text he suggests designers/artists adopt the process of an archeologist, where for instance
one might find a fragment of a tooth of an ancient creature and use it to reconstruct the entire
animal. He suggests doing this to create theoretical reconstructions of imaginary objects. He
says, ‘whatever emerges from this, we do not know exactly what it is, or what world it belongs
to. Maybe it will belong solely to the world of aesthetics and imagination.’
In all possible futures, Ed Fella has a similar series of sketchbook collages and
instructions called potential design for bygone eras, where he creates work in defunct or
antiquated styles for imaginary design briefs in 2013. For both Fella and Munari, then, it seems
that a bit of fiction is necessary in exploring design. What place do you think writing or fiction
has in speculative work?

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EM- since design is embedded in, produced by, and productive of the world around it,
since a designed form implies its context, which, in turn, elicits that form, it makes sense that a
speculative design would carry with it the alternative universe to which it belongs. Whether
approaching an experimental artifact as a fragment that invokes a world we might not be able to
imagine, or imagining the properties of that world in order to elaborate on a design for it, these
exercises are extensions of a speculative practice. I am not familiar with many other historical
examples of this sort of work, nor am I aware as I should be of current uses for the notion of
‘design fiction’, but I would venture to guess that they range from rhetorical to creative and from
futurist to critical.
Page 24-25
JS- when I first started in graphic design in the mid 1990s, graduate programmes seemed
to be the place where most speculative and experimental work was made. In 2013, I don’t think
they really need a closed sheltered environment to make such work.
EM- I agree: the density of disposition, the critical mass of shared reference, and the
frequency of peripheral examples that an academic environment affords can be found in other
spaces and networks now. And the economics of technological access to those spaces and
networks are such that the alternative modes of work they support can be woven into daily
circumstances, ranging from the intentional choices of scrappiness to the margins of affluence.
Time, and the ability to focus, which grad school provides and induces, remains the trickiest bits
to pull off in less sheltered contexts. But these difficulties are arguably more than made up for an
ease of reach-both to a work’s sources and of its presentation.

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JS- architects (or architectural collectives) like Lebbeus Woods, Buckminster Fuller,
Archigram, Superstudio, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaas, just to name a few, made their names
largely via hypothetical or visionary work that remains un built and exists only on paper. In the
past, in graphic design, the unmade proposal has been unseen and rarely part of the broader
discourse, but I think critical, speculative work has a much more visible presence today. For
instance the recent exhibition graphic design: now in production at the walker art center
showcased a lot of work created purely as investigation. Are we actually witnessing an important
shift in the field?
EM- graphic design may be conceived as a combination of elements that are integral to
culture and communication-its history traceable to the earliest human marks- or as a practice that
arose about a hundred years ago out of a conjunction of specific social, economic, and
technological factors. To address your question, I think we have to take the latter view and note
that the sway of professionalism has been decisive in this shorter version of graphic design’s
history. Whereas architecture has been a self described art since the classical age and has
maintained a theoretical sphere throughout its history, graphic design’s spokespeople have by
and large chosen to root its value in immediate benefits mostly to business. We can point to
significant moments that contradict this statement: the social aims of the early twentieth century
avant-garde, the idealism of the Swiss international style, the deeper utilitarianism of first things
first and others.
An ideal Design is not yet page 30-31
There is a notion of idealism that today is seldom discussed, and simply defines the future
as: ‘not yet’. This phrase comes from the German philosopher Ernest Bloch. The meaning of this

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phrase-by Ernest Bloch- is subtler and deeper than you might think at first sight. Naturally, all
that is not, but may come, is not yet. What matters is what you want isn’t it? What you envisagethat is the ideal future. But Bloch meant something else. Idealists are often inclined to regard the
world as it ought to be, as a model that is beyond dispute, as a design that sets out the precise
details of how the future will look. That the present does not look like it is the fault present.
Bloch says that this vision of the future, which is already complete and only has to be recognized
to become reality, can have a paralyzing effect. The gap between ideal and reality can be too
large to be appreciated, and our fixation on the ultimate goal can obscure the path toward it and
cloud our view of the reality of the present. Hence Bloc...