hal foster abc's of contemporary design

Upload: bblq

Post on 04-Jun-2018

255 views

Category:

Documents


1 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    1/10

    The ABCs of Contemporary DesignAuthor(s): Hal FosterSource: October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence (Spring, 2002), pp. 191-199Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779099.

    Accessed: 02/11/2013 18:16

    Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

    .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

    content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

    of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

    .

    The MIT Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.

    http://www.jstor.org

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/779099?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/779099?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    2/10

    The ABCs ofContemporary esign*

    HAL FOSTER

    Autonomy:Aesthetic utonomy s the notion that culture s a sphere apart,witheach artdistinct,nd it s a bad wordformostof us raised on postmodernistnter-disciplinarity.We tend to forgetthat autonomyis alwaysprovisional, alwaysdefineddiacriticallynd situatedpolitically,lways emi. nlightenmenthinkersadvocated political autonomy n order to challenge the vestedinterests f theancienregime,hile modernist rtists dvocated aestheticautonomy n order toresist llustrationalmeaningsand commercial forces. Like "essentialism," hen,"autonomy"s a bad word,but itmaynot always e a bad strategy,specially t amoment when postmodernist nterdisciplinarity as become routine: call it"strategicutonomy."Bonaventura:n hisseminalanalysis fpostmodern pace, "The CulturalLogic ofLate Capitalism," redricJamesonused the vast triumoftheBonaventuraHotelin Los Angeles designed byJohnPortman s a symptomf a new kind ofarchitec-tural ublime: sortofhyper-spacehatderangesthehuman sensorium. amesontook this spatial delirium as a particular instance of a general incapacitytocomprehend the late capitalistuniverse,to map it cognitively. trangely,whatJamesonoffered s a critiquefpostmodern ulturemany rchitectsFrankGehryforemostmongthem)havetaken as a paragon: he creationofextravagant pacesthat work to overwhelm he subject,a neo-Baroque Sublime dedicated to thegloryof the Corporation (which is the Church of our age). It is as if thesearchitectsdesignednot in contestation f "the cultural ogic of late capitalism"butaccordingto its pecifications.Carcassonne:Carcassonne s a tourist estination n southernFrance,a medievalcite' epletewithchateau, church,and fortifications. iollet-le-Ducrestored tstowers nd turretsn the nineteenth entury,nd thesiteretains n unreal sheen:it s a historical own urned ntoa themepark,with tswallswhitened nd capped* This textwas written n October2001 as a supplement part glossary, art guide) to myDesignand Crimeand Otheriatribes)London and New York:Verso,2002).OCTOBER100,Spring002,pp.191-199. ? 2002Hal Foster

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    3/10

    192 OCTOBER

    like TV-star eeth.At least Americansmake theirDisneylandsfrom cratch,ortheyonce did so. More and more this Carcassonnization-the canonizationofthe urban carcass-is at work n American cities as well. For example, the cast-ironbuildings f SoHo nowgleamwith he shineof artifacts-become-commodities.Like Viollet-le-Duc, developers undertake these face-lifts n the name ofhistoricalpreservation,but the purpose is financialaggrandizement.And likevictimsof cosmeticsurgery,hese facadesmaymaskhistorical ge but advancemnemonicdecay.Design: Today everything-fromarchitectureand art to eans and genes-istreated s so muchdesign.Those old heroes of industrialmodernism, he artist-as-engineerand the author-as-producer,re long gone, and the postindustrialdesignernow rulessupreme.Todayyoudon'thaveto be filthyichto be designerand designed n one-whether theproduct n questionisyourhome orbusiness,your aggingface (designer urgery) r laggingpersonalitydesignerdrugs),yourhistoricalmemory designermuseum),or DNA futuredesignerchildren).Mightthis "designed subject" of consumerism be the unintended offspring f the"constructed ubject"of postmodernism?One thingseems clear: todaydesignabets a near-perfectircuit fproduction nd consumption.Environment:he worldoftotaldesign s an old dreamofmodernism, ut tonlycomes true, n perverseform, n our pan-capitalistpresent.Withpost-Fordistproduction,commodities an be tweaked nd marketsniched,so thata productcan be mass nquantity et ppear personal naddress.Desire s notonlyregisteredin products today,but is specified there: a self-interpellations performed ncatalogsand on-line lmost utomatically.n large part t s thisperpetualprofilingof the commoditythatdrives the contemporary nflation of design.Yet whathappenswhenthiscommodity-machinereaksdown, s markets rash, weatshopworkers esist, r environmentsiveout?Finitude:An earlyversionof totaldesignwas advanced in ArtNouveau,with tswill to ornament. This Style 900 found its great nemesis in Adolf Loos, whoattacked t n several exts.One attack ook theform f an allegorical kit bout "apoor littlerichman" who commissioned designer o put "art n each and everything": The architecthas forgotten othing, bsolutelynothing.Cigar ashtrays,cutlery, light switches-everything, everything was made by him." ThisGesamtkunstwerkid more thancombineart, rchitecture,nd craft;tcommingledsubject and object: "the individualityf the owner was expressed in every rna-ment, everyform,everynail." For the ArtNouveau designer the result isperfection: You are complete "he exults to the owner.But the owner s not sosure;rather hana sanctuary rommodern tress, e sees his ArtNouveau interioras another nstance f t. "The happymansuddenly elt eeply, eeplyunhappy....He wasprecludedfrom ll futureiving nd striving,eveloping nd desiring.He

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    4/10

    TheABCsofContemporaryesign 193

    thought, his s what t means to learn to go about lifewithone's owncorpse.Yesindeed.He is finished. e iscompletef'or theArtNouveaudesigneruchcompletionreunited artand life,withall signsofdeath banished. For Loos thistriumphantovercoming f imitswas a catastrophicoss of the same-the lossof theobjectiveconstraintsrequired to define any "future ivingand striving, eveloping anddesiring." ar from transcendence fdeath,this oss of finitudewas a death-in-life, iving with ne's owncorpse."Gesamtkunstwerk:AfterSeptember 11, metaphorical talk of corpses seemsmisbegotten, nd confusionsbetween art and lifeworse. Recall the remarks fKarlheinzStockhausen n the WorldTrade Centerattack: Whathappened thereis-they all have to rearrange heirbrainsnow-is the greatestworkof art ever:thatcharacters an bring boutin one act whatwe inmusiccannot dreamof, hatpeople practice madly ortenyears, ompletely, anatically,or concert nd thendie. That is the greatestworkof art forthewhole of the cosmos. I could not dothat.Againstthat we composersare nothing."Yet thisreadingof avant-gardismcannot be simplydisavowed:with the simplestmeans the terrorists ocked oursymbolic rder ikenothingbefore.Butthisreading lso reveals hegraveproblemof such avant-gardism:here its confusion of art and life abets a conflationbetween symbolic ransgressionnd massmurder. t is long past time to foregocrypto-fascistdeas ofsublimity.High-Rise: n Delirious ewYork1978), a "retrospective anifesto orManhattan,"Rem Koolhaas publishedan old, tintedpostcardof thecity kyline rom heearly1930s. tpresents heEmpireState,Chrysler,nd other andmark uildings f thetimewith visionarywist-a dirigible et to dock at thespireof theEmpireState.It is an image of the twentieth-centuryity s a spectacleof new tourism, o besure,but also as a utopia of new spaces-of people freeto circulate fromthestreet,throughthe tower, o the sky, nd back down again. (The image is notstrictly apitalist:the utopian conjunctionof skyscrapernd airship appears inrevolutionaryussiandesignsof the1920saswell.) The attack n theWorldTradeCenter-the two ets flown nto the two towers-was a dystopianperversionofthismodernist dream of freemovementthroughcosmopolitan space. Muchdamage was done to thisgreatvisionofthe skyscraper ity--andto New Yorkasthecapitalof thisold dream.Indiscipline:Several of these notes circle around a singlethesis:contemporarydesign spartof a greater evenge akenbyadvancedcapitalism n postmodernistculture-a recoupingof tscrossings farts and disciplines, routinization f tstransgressions.We know thatautonomy, ven semi-autonomy,s a fiction,butperiodically his fiction s useful, ven necessary,s it was at the high-modernistmoment of Loos and companyone hundredyearsago. Periodically, oo, it canbecomerepressive,vendeadening, s itwasa few ecadesagowhen ate modernism

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    5/10

    194 OCTOBER

    had petrifiedntomedium-specificitynd postmodernism romised n interdisci-plinary pening.But this s no longerour situation. t is timetorecapture senseofthepoliticalsituatedness f bothautonomy nd itstransgression,sense ofthehistorical ialectic ofdisciplinaritynd its contestation.JewelBox: No termsmore mportanto modern rchitecturehan"transparency."For SiegfriedGiedion thistransparency as predicatedon technologies uch assteel ndglass nd ferro-concretehat llowed thorough xposition farchitecturalspace. For LaizloMoholy-Nagy,t allowed architecture n turn to integratethedifferent ransparencies f othermediums, uch as photography nd film.Lessconcernedwithspace thanlight,Moholysaw this ntegration s fundamental othe "newvision"ofmodernist ulture n general.Yetthisvisiondid not farewellafter he war. n "Transparency:iteral nd Phenomenal" (1963), ColinRoweandRobertSlutzkydevalued literal n favorof phenomenal transparency,n which"Cubist" urfaces interpenetrate ithout pticaldestruction f each other."Thisrevaluationmarked hemomentwhen,once more,articulation fsurfacebecameas important s thatofspace, and theunderstanding f skin as important s thatof structure. n other words, t marked the discursiveadvent of postmodernarchitecture n its twoprincipalversions:first, rchitecture s a scenographicsurface of symbols as in pastichepostmodernism romRobertVenturion) and,later, rchitectures an autonomous ransformationfformsas indeconstructivistpostmodernismrom eterEisenmanon). Todaymanyprominentrchitects,uchas Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron,and RichardGluckman,do not fitneatlyinto either camp: theyhold on to literal transparency ven as theyelaboratephenomenal transparency ithprojective kins nd luminous crims. ometimes,however,these skins and scrimsonlydazzle or confuse,and the architecturebecomes an illuminated culpture, radiantewel. It can be beautiful, ut it canalso be spectacularnthenegativeenseusedbyGuyDebord-a kindofcommodity-fetish n a grand cale,a mysteriousbjectwhoseproduction smystified.Kool House: "Thisarchitectureelates o theforces ftheGroflstadtthemetropolis]like a surferto the waves," Koolhaas once remarked of the skyscrapersofManhattan.With his recent nterventionsn the global city, he same mightbesaid of hisownarchitecture,nd itmightnotsound likepraise.Whatdoes itmeanfor an architect o surf the Grofstadtoday-to perfect ts curve,to extend itstrajectory?venif n architect s empowered nough tomaketheattempt, an heor she do more than crashon the beach?Life Style: n Life Style2000), a compendium of his work,Canadian designerBruceMau asksus to thinkdesignas "life tyle"n thephilosophical ense oftheGreeks,Nietzsche,or Foucault, that s, as an ethics.But the styleof LifeStylescloser in spiritto Martha Stewart-a foldingof the "examined life"into the"designed life."Such styledoes not boost our "character," s LifeStyle laims;

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    6/10

    TheABCsofContemporaryesign 195

    rather, t aids the contemporary onflation of the realization of selfwiththeconsumption f dentity.Mediation:"Mediation" used to mean the critical ttempt o think he totalityfthe social worldbeyond its fragmentationnd disconnection. Now it tends torefer o a socialworldgivenoverto electronicmedia-and to an economicworldretooled around digitizing nd computing. n thismediation,the commoditysno longer an object to be produced so much as a datum to be manipulated-designedand redesigned, onsumed and reconsumed.This is another reasonwhydesignis inflated oday, o the pointwhere t is no longera secondary ndustry.Perhapswe shouldspeakof a "political conomy fdesign."Nobrow:One aspectof thismediatedworld s a merging f culture nd marketing.For some commentators hishas effected new kind of "nobrow" ulture n whichthe old distinctions f highbrow,middlebrow,nd lowbrowno longerapply.Forfans of thisdevelopment nobrow" s not a dumbingdownofintellectual ultureso muchas a wising p to commercial ulture,whichbecomes a source ofstatusnits ownright.Today, his rgument uns,we are all in the same "megastore,"nlyin differentisles, nd that s a good thing-that sdemocracy.etthis sa conflationof democracywithconsumption,a conflation that underwritesthe principalcommodity n sale in thismarketplace: hefantasyhatclassdivisions re therebyresolved.Thisfantasys thecontemporaryomplement o the foundationalmythofthe United States: that uch divisionsneverexistedhere in the first lace. Thisdelusion allows millionsof Americansto voteagainsttheirclass interests t leastevery ouryears.Outmoded: "The oldermedia,not designedformassproduction, ake on a newtimeliness: hatofexemption nd of mprovisation. heyalone could outflank heunited frontof trusts nd technology." o writesTheodor Adorno in MinimaMoralia (1951) on the criticaluse of outmoded media in a capitalist ontextofceaseless obsolescence. Here, of course,Adorno drawson WalterBenjamin,forwhom "theoutmoded" wasa centralconcern. "Balzacwas the first o speakoftheruins of the bourgeoisie," Benjamin wrote in his ArcadesProject. But onlySurrealism xposed them to view.The developmentof the forcesofproductionreduced the wish symbolsof the previous centuryto rubble even before themonumentsrepresenting hem had crumbled."The "wish ymbols" n questionare the capitalistwonders ofthenineteenth-centuryourgeoisieat theheightofitsconfidence, uchas "thearcades and interiors,heexhibitions nd panoramas."These structures ascinated he Surrealistsnearly century ater-when furthercapitalistdevelopment had turnedthem into "residues of a dream world"or,again,"rubble venbefore hemonumentswhich epresentedhemhad crumbled."For the Surrealists o haunttheseoutmodedspaces,according oBenjamin,was totap "therevolutionary nergies"thatweretrappedthere.But it is less utopianto

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    7/10

    196 OCTOBER

    say imply hattheSurrealists egistered he mnemonic ignals ncryptedn thesestructures-signals thatmightnot otherwisehave reached the present. Thisdeploymentof the outmoded can query the totalistassumptionsof capitalistculture, nd itsclaimtobe timeless; tcan also remind hisculture f ts ownwishsymbols,nd its ownforfeited reamsofliberty, quality, nd fraternity.an thismnemonic dimension of the outmodedstillbe mined today, r is the outmodednow outmoded too-another device of fashion?Post-Fordism: he objectworld of modern cities was born of a Fordist conomythatwasrelativelyixed: actories ndwarehouses, kyscrapersnd bridges, ailwaysand highways.However, s our economyhas become more post-Fordist, apitalhas flowedever more rapidly n search ofcheap labor, nnovativemanufacture,financial eregulation,nd newmarkets; nd the ife xpectancy fmanybuildingshas fallendramatically.Manycities are nowhybrids f the twoeconomies,withFordist tructuresften etrofittedopost-Fordisteeds.) Thisprocess spronouncedin the UnitedStates,ofcourse,but it s rapaciouswheredevelopment s evenlessrestricted. His task is trulympossible,"Koolhaas writes f the architect n thiscondition, toexpress ncreasing urbulencen a stablemedium." n a post-Fordistcontext,what an the criteria farchitecture e?Quarantine:ForKoolhaas,theskyscrapers the crux of the "culture fcongestion"of the old Manhattan, nd he sees it as a matingoftwo emblematicforms-"theneedle" and "theglobe."The needle grabs"attention," hile the globe promises"receptivity,"nd "thehistory f Manhattanism s a dialectic between these twoforms." ince September11 the discursive rame fthisManhattanism as shifted.New fears lingto theskyscrapers a terroristarget, nd the valuesof"attention"and "receptivity" re rendered suspicious. The same holds for the values ofcongestionand "delirious pace"; they re overshadowedbycallsfor urveillanceand "defensible pace." In short, he "urbanistic go" and culturaldiversityhatKoolhaas celebrates nDelirious ewYorkre underenormouspressure.Theyneedadvocates like neverbefore; for, o paraphrasethe Surrealists,NewYorkBeautywillbe deliriousorwillnot be.Running-Room: smuch as interdisciplinarityscrucialto cultural ractice, o tooare distinctions,s Karl Kraus nsisted n 1912: "Adolf oos and I-he literallyndI linguistically-havedone nothingmore than showthat there is a distinctionbetween an urn and a chamberpot and that t is thisdistinction bove all thatprovidesculturewithrunning-roomSpielraum]. he others,the positiveones[i.e., those who failto make thisdistinction], re divided nto those who use theurn as a chamberpot and those who use the chamberpot as an urn." Those whouse the urn as a chamberpot"were ArtNouveau designerswho wanted to infuseart (the urn) into the utilitarianobject (the chamberpot). Those who did thereversewerefunctionalistmodernistswho wanted to elevatetheutilitarian bject

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    8/10

    TheABCsofContemporaryesign 197

    intoart.For Kraus the twomistakesweresymmetrical-both onfuseduse-valueand art-value-and bothrisked regressivendistinction:hey ailed tosafeguard"therunning-room"ecessary o liberal ubjectivitynd culture.Note thatnothingis said about a natural essence" ofart,or an absolute"autonomy" fculture; hestake s simply ne of "distinctions" nd "running-room,"fproposeddifferencesand provisional paces.Spectacle: Clearly rchitecture as a newcentralityn culturaldiscourse.Althoughthiscentralitytemsfrom he initial debates about postmodernismn the 1970s,whichwere focused on architecture,t is clinchedbythe contemporarynflationof design and display n all sorts of spheres-art, fashion,business,and so on.Moreover, o make a big splash n theglobalpond ofspectacle culture oday, nehas to have a big rock to drop, maybe as big as the GuggenheimMuseum inBilbao; and here architects ikeGehryhave an obviousadvantageoverartists nothermedia. n The ocietyf he pectacle1967),Deborddefined pectacle s "capitalaccumulated to thepointwhere t becomes an image."WithGehry nd companythe reverse s now true as well:spectacle is "an image accumulated to the pointwhere tbecomes capital."Such is the ogicofmany ultural enters oday, s theyaredesigned, longsidethemeparks nd sports omplexes, oassist n thecorporate"revival" f the city-that is, n itsbeingmade safe for hopping, pectating, ndspacingout. This s the"Bilbao-Effect."Tectonics: For all thefuturismfthe computer-assistedesignsofarchitects ikeGehry,his structuresre often kin to the Statue ofLiberty, ith separateskinhungovera hiddenarmature,ndwith xterior urfaces hatrarelymatchup withinteriorspaces. With the putativepassingof the industrialage, the structuraltransparencyfmodern architecturewas declared outmoded,and now the Popaesthetic of postmodernarchitecture ooks dated as well. The search for thearchitecture f the computer ge is on; ironically, owever,t has led Gehry ndfollowers to nineteenth-century culpture as a model, at least in part. Thedisconnectionbetweenskin nd structure epresented ythis cademicmodel hastwoproblematic ffects. irst,t can lead tostrained paces that re mistaken ornew kind of architectural ublime.Second, it can abet a further isconnectionbetweenbuilding nd site. amnotpleadingfor return ostructuralransparency;I am simply autioning gainst new Potemkin rchitecturefconjuredsurfacesdrivenbycomputerdesign.Unabombers: From the handler of the terrorist n The Secret gent 1907), byJosephConrad: "Payattention owhat say.The fetish ftoday s neitherroyaltynor religion.Therefore the palace and the church should be leftalone .... Amurderous ttempt n a restaurant r a theatrewould suffer..,from hesugges-tion of a nonpoliticalpassion .... Of course there s art. A bomb in theNationalGallerywould makesomenoise. But t would notbe seriousenough.Arthas never

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    9/10

    198 OCTOBER

    been theirfetish.... But there s learning-science. Any mbecile thathas gotanincomebelieves n that.He does not knowwhy, uthe believes t matters omehow.It is the sacrosanct etish.... The whole civilizedworldhas heard ofGreenwich....Yes,theblowingup of thefirstmeridian s bound to raise a howl of execration."The terroristsfSeptember11 pickedout our "fetishes ftoday"withprecision:thearchitectures f"finance" nd "defense."Vernacular:Postmodernarchitecture retended to revivevernacularforms, utforthemostpart treplacedthemwith ommercial igns, nd Pop imagesbecameas importantas articulated space. In our design world,thisdevelopment hasreached a new level: nowcommodity-imagend space are oftenmelded throughdesign.Designers striveforprograms inwhich brand identity,ignagesystems,interiors, and architecture would be totally integrated"(Bruce Mau). Thisintegration depends on a deterritorializingof both image and space, whichdepends n turn n a digitizingf thephotograph,ts oosening rom ld referentialties, nd on a computing farchitecture,ts ooseningfrom ld tectonic rinciples.As Deleuze and Guattari letalone Marx) taught s longago, thisdeterritorializingis thepathofcapital,not theavant-garde.WithoutQualities: Design is all about desire,but todaythis desire seems almostsubject-less,r at leastalmost ack-less: esign eems toadvancea kindofnarcissismthat s all imageand no interiority-anapotheosisof thesubjectthatmaybe onewith tsdisappearance. n ourneo-ArtNouveau worldoftotaldesignand Internetplenitude, the fate of "the poor littlerich man" of Loos, "precluded from allfuture iving nd striving, eveloping nd desiring,"s on thevergeof realization.RobertMusil, Loos contemporary,lso seemed toanticipate hisStyle000 fromtheperspective fStyle 900. "Aworldofqualitieswithoutman has arisen,"Musilwrote n TheMan Withoutualities1930-43), "ofexperienceswithout hepersonwho experiencesthem, nd italmost ooks as though deallyprivate xperience sa thingof the past,and thatthe friendly urden ofpersonal responsibilitys todissolve nto a system fformulas fpossiblemeanings.Probably he dissolutionof theanthropocentric ointofview,whichfor uch a long timeconsideredmanto be at the centerof the universebut whichhas been fadingforcenturies,hasfinallyrrived t the I' itself."Xed: Two theoreticalmodels structured ritical studies of postwar rtabove allothers:theoppositional ogicofthe"post-,"f an interdisciplinaryostmodernismopposed to a medium-specific odernism,nd therecursivetrategyf the"neo-,"of a postwarneo-avant-gardehatrecovered he devices oftheprewar vant-garde(e.g., the monochrome, the readymade, the collage). Today,however,thesemodels are playedout; neither ufficess a strongparadigmforpractice, nd noother model stands n their tead. Formany hisdouble demise s a good thing: tpermits rtistic iversity;weak"theory s better hanstrong; nd so on. But our

    This content downloaded from 144.122.1.203 on Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:16:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
  • 8/14/2019 Hal Foster ABC's of Contemporary Design

    10/10

    TheABCsofContemporaryesign 199

    paradigm-of-no-paradigman also abet a stagnant ncommensurabilityr a flatindifference,nd thisposthistorical efault fcontemporaryrtand architectureis no improvement n the old teleologicalprojectionsofmodernist ractices.Allof us (artists,ritics, urators,mateurs)eed somenarrativeo focus urpractices-situated stories,not grandsricits.Without this guide we are likelyto remainswamped n thedoublewakeofpost/modernismnd theneo/avant-garde.Yahoos: ..Zebras: In American footballthe refereeswhowearstriped hirts re derided as"zebras," utthegame is difficulto playwithout hem. Criticsonce had a similarstatus n the sportsof art and architecture, ut more and more oftenthey rebanishedfrom he field.Over the ast wodecades a nexusofcurators nd collectors,dealers and clientshasdisplacedthecritic; orthesemanagersofart nd architec-ture critical valuation, et alone theoretical nalysis,s ofno use. Theydeem thecritic n obstruction,nd activelyhun him orher, s do many rtists nd architects.In this void returns the poet-criticwho waxes on about Beauty as the moralsubjectofart and architecture, ith ensation held over as a fun ideshow, rwhocombines the two in a pop-libertarianaesthetic perfectformarketrule. Thisdevelopmentneeds to be challenged, ifit is not too late, and "running-room"secured wherever t can be foundormade.

    Thi d l d d f 144 122 1 203 S 2 N 2013 18 16 51 PM

    http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp