To: design-list
Subject: re: Monkeys and designers
Date: 2002.10.26 11:06
Arthur,
You raise an interesting point. I've never heard of the 100th monkey notion,
but I have from time to time wondered about the fact "that designers, that
have never seen the work of another, and living across geographic bounds,
can create similar art." In the mid-1980s I thought (to myself) that
wavelengths, somehow literally and/or figuratively, had to do with an
otherwise serendipitous creative/cognitive commonality. The wavelengths (if
I try to expand this 'theory') emanate from individuals and these same
wavelengths are picked up by other individuals, and in either case
heightened sensitivity is involved. Like the 100th monkey notion, as more
individuals incorporate a wavelength that is out there, the stronger the
wavelength 'signal' becomes. Admittedly, this idea is easily flawed, and I
only mention it now as something I used to think (about).
While your question (rightly) centers on creative similarities between
disparate artists/designers, a related phenomenon in our time is the
effective role of the hired publicist. Recently, I mentioned that Frank
Gehry's cardboard furniture was featured in a 1972 issue of LIFE magazine. I
have my own collection of 1972 Life magazines that I received by
subscription back then and which I've been taking apart over the years, but
I also recently purchased a lot of them via eBay, thus my renewed knowledge
of what is in these magazines. I wanted to show the Gehry feature but I
didn't bookmark it. So, instead of looking through all the magazines again,
I looked up the article in a Gehry bibliography, and I was surprised to find
that there were over a dozen 1972 publications that featured an article on
Gehry's cardboard furniture. In this case, the 100th monkey is more
specifically the 100th magazine editor contacted by a publicist.
And now back to wavelengths (which, for me at least, you might say evolved
into "calendrical coincidence"). Yesterday I received an email from a NY art
gallery inviting me to an opening this coming Thursday. I never heard of
this gallery before, nor did I know the artist being exhibited. I soon found
the connection, however, in that the exhibit is curated by Thomas Girst,
whose name I know via the Duchamp www bulletin board. I am thus intrigued.
The artist is Charles Henri Ford, who is considered America's first
surrealist poet, and the work to be displayed at The Scene Gallery
(www.thescenegallery.org) are collages Ford created over the last 10 years,
but have only been seen by a few of Ford's friends up until now. Images of
eight of these collages are at the gallery website, and when I saw these
images I couldn't help but also see a strong similarity between them and
collages I've been occasionally doing over the last few years.
The most interesting aspect of the above coincidence is that I indeed know
the almost 20 year long process that has led to my collages looking the way
they do now, while Ford's collages are the only visual art works he has ever
produced, and, as Girst told me on the phone yesterday, "up to now there is
no market for Ford's visual work." Given that Ford very recently died, I
imagine his collages will all sell.
Steve
Subject: re: Monkeys and designers
Date: 2002.10.26 11:06
Arthur,
You raise an interesting point. I've never heard of the 100th monkey notion,
but I have from time to time wondered about the fact "that designers, that
have never seen the work of another, and living across geographic bounds,
can create similar art." In the mid-1980s I thought (to myself) that
wavelengths, somehow literally and/or figuratively, had to do with an
otherwise serendipitous creative/cognitive commonality. The wavelengths (if
I try to expand this 'theory') emanate from individuals and these same
wavelengths are picked up by other individuals, and in either case
heightened sensitivity is involved. Like the 100th monkey notion, as more
individuals incorporate a wavelength that is out there, the stronger the
wavelength 'signal' becomes. Admittedly, this idea is easily flawed, and I
only mention it now as something I used to think (about).
While your question (rightly) centers on creative similarities between
disparate artists/designers, a related phenomenon in our time is the
effective role of the hired publicist. Recently, I mentioned that Frank
Gehry's cardboard furniture was featured in a 1972 issue of LIFE magazine. I
have my own collection of 1972 Life magazines that I received by
subscription back then and which I've been taking apart over the years, but
I also recently purchased a lot of them via eBay, thus my renewed knowledge
of what is in these magazines. I wanted to show the Gehry feature but I
didn't bookmark it. So, instead of looking through all the magazines again,
I looked up the article in a Gehry bibliography, and I was surprised to find
that there were over a dozen 1972 publications that featured an article on
Gehry's cardboard furniture. In this case, the 100th monkey is more
specifically the 100th magazine editor contacted by a publicist.
And now back to wavelengths (which, for me at least, you might say evolved
into "calendrical coincidence"). Yesterday I received an email from a NY art
gallery inviting me to an opening this coming Thursday. I never heard of
this gallery before, nor did I know the artist being exhibited. I soon found
the connection, however, in that the exhibit is curated by Thomas Girst,
whose name I know via the Duchamp www bulletin board. I am thus intrigued.
The artist is Charles Henri Ford, who is considered America's first
surrealist poet, and the work to be displayed at The Scene Gallery
(www.thescenegallery.org) are collages Ford created over the last 10 years,
but have only been seen by a few of Ford's friends up until now. Images of
eight of these collages are at the gallery website, and when I saw these
images I couldn't help but also see a strong similarity between them and
collages I've been occasionally doing over the last few years.
The most interesting aspect of the above coincidence is that I indeed know
the almost 20 year long process that has led to my collages looking the way
they do now, while Ford's collages are the only visual art works he has ever
produced, and, as Girst told me on the phone yesterday, "up to now there is
no market for Ford's visual work." Given that Ford very recently died, I
imagine his collages will all sell.
Steve