Ghettopia or did you mean: ghetto
Hey Stephen,
As you know, in the United States, 'ghetto' is a popular euphemism for anything poor, poorly maintained or dysfunctional, or behaviors considered unsophisticated. Similar to the common usage of 'gay' to mean wrong, awkward or stupid. Still, despite its derogatory connotations, I use 'ghetto' interchangeably with 'awesome'.
When you invited me to contribute a text related to you and your practice for inclusion in a reader that you're compiling for your studies in the masters program at Werkplaats Typographie, you reminded me that I once called you a 'ghettomodernist'. That got me thinking about what I meant. Took me back to the six-year period (2002-2007) I was teaching at Art Center College of Design, especially Experimental Typography, where manipulating language was a freestyle sport.
I coined 'ghettomodernist' during a crit to compliment you on your ingenuity with cardboard; but, in retrospect, it was also one of many attempts to describe a shared attitude and approach that was developing as the result of three converging influences: Southern California, the Graphic Design Department of Art Center (known for its modernist curriculum and hardcore formal training), and our classroom (ironically, ghettoed from the main campus in a temporary structure) where we dedicated ourselves to designer-initiated practices: installations, performances and publications, mainly, that operated in productive contrast to the department.
It was a ghettopia: an autonomous and privileged mode of learning and working that strove to transcend the stereotyped role of the graphic designer through emancipative self-production as opposed to self-expression. The roles of student and professor were dropped in favor of designer-to-designer debates, which, if lucky, continued over beers afterwards. Our drive was to participate in and contribute to contemporary culture beyond the norms set by the academy, the market, and history. We produced work that defined its own economies by finding or recruiting audiences, as well as non-entrepreneurial activities that explored needs and spaces independent of capitalist culture. We experimented with communication that challenged people instead of serving them. We published resources for conceptual problems from disinformation to time travel. We collaborated and competed to out-ghetto each other's resourcefulness and transformative (mis)uses of materials.
In a word, it was: ghetto. A rare opportunity to contemplate and demonstrate other capacities for graphic design. We've since moved on to new and different challenges, and cities. But in the absence of the conditions that stimulated and supported our productivity, have we lost what it takes to continue designer-initiated practices outside of school? Especially those of us working in the United States, where there are few if no incentives for developing alternative and/or autonomous models of practice, and the pressure to conform and cater to business as usual often outweighs the time, energy, and money required to do your own thing. So to all ghettomodernists*, regardless of what we call ourselves or where we call home, I ask: What are we producing now? Are we ghetto enough?
*ghettomodernists: Dustin Arnold, Elizabeth Azen, Ricardo Beltran, Matthew Boyd, Dante Carlos, Sean Cassidy, Eliana Dominguez, Seth Ferris, Robert T Foote III, Aaron Frebowitz, Matt Gilbert, Kristian Henson, Hazel Hill, River Jukes Hudson, Norman Ibarra, Aaron Kapor, Atley Kasky, Everett Katigbak, Ann Kim, Ely Kim, Caleb Kozlowski, Jennifer Leartanasan, David Lee, Ron Lu, Yvan Martinez, Josh McLeod, Michelle Mondragon, Thomas Morris, Michael Myers, Deniz Orhun, Micah Panama, Cleon Peterson, Stephen Serrato, Virginia Sin, Jordan Stark, Jeremy Sutherland, Joshua Tetreault, Joshua Trees, Tony Van Groningen, Ali Rza and Kevin Wong.
Joshua Trees, email to Stephen Serrato on January 26, 2009