Page 17 - Studio International - October 1966

Vision*, a difference was drawn between the old order was to employ real live artists to.teach. By designs must satisfy. This obligation does not mean
in art and the new—the old mechanistic, Deterministic that there is no room for self-expression or visual
their practice they solved formal problems
Vision of the past and the Cybernetic Vision which is design; these two things are still, I think,the industrial
which still seem to defeat the committees.
forming in the present era. It suggested that art designer's chief contribution. It does, however, mean
is becoming progressively more behaviourist: the Indeed, it is a sad paradox that Victor that he must have the inclination and training to
behaviour of artist, artwork and spectator are dis- Pasmore and William Coldstream should regard the requirements of finance, production,
tinctly interrelated and more senses than the purely have been more effective when apprentice- ergonomics and the like as sources of inspiration
visual are engaged. The artifact itself behaves in teachers (but practising artists) than they rather than as irksome restrictions on his capacity
some sense and also acts as agent for the extension are now as figure-heads of an Establish- for visual self-expression.
of creativity into the participant-spectator's behaviour. What training, if any, should be provided for pro-
Where art was concerned with object, product and ment they are unable to control. fessional artists? Clearly we live at a time when pro-
fact, it is now more concerned with process, system fessional artists are valued chiefly for their originality
and event. Art is no longer contemplation, description and for their ability to extend our capacity to perceive
or the forming of absolutes, but has become dialogue, from Theo Crosby, architect and and to interpret the appearance of things and events.
experience and the asking of questions. Where it designer: This being the case we do not require, and cannot
sought to establish a predetermined harmony or expect to find, more than a sprinkling of people
equilibrium it now purposes to shake up the whole Though I am in general agreement with capable of operating at this high level of originality
human organism, setting up unpredictable patterns Richard Hamilton and Misha Black, I find and independence. The question of training does not
of thought and behaviour in the observer. In fine art, the tendency towards a new hierachy (the really arise. What a potential modern artist (who is
then, a behavioural process of education appears to initially self-selected) requires is not training but
technology-based world of industrial design
be needed. security, time, facilities, encouragement and criti-
The modern 'Aesthetic of Process and System' finds and architecture) yet another division in cism. These things he used to find in an art school.
its expression equally in design, or at least there are education which works against coherence Unfortunately the academic requirements which have
some perceptive and forward-reaching designers who and total involvement in society. Hamilton's recently been introduced are an obstacle rather than
have responded to the challenge of the incipient point about changing social needs is really a help to the aspiring artist, by whom they are rightly
cybernated society. (In this country J. C. Jones, Bruce the important issue: work/play, art/design, perceived as irrelevant.
Archer, or the 'Klip-Kit' contributors can be cited, It is clear that we should give much thought to the
for example.) But art schools tend to prefer styling, a these are not opposites any more, but re-establishment of a system, firstly, of spotting the
reliance on 'artistic flair' and the old fragmented, becoming aspects of, the same activity, potentially original artist at an early stage in his
academic divisions of architecture, industrial design, actually the same process. school career and, secondly, of providing him with the
graphics and so on. But a wholly integral unit em- facilities he needs without the need to conform to any
bracing all aspects of art and design is needed, and academic requirements. This privilege, which need
the CAM-concept (Cybernetic Art Matrix) is just one from J. Christopher Jones, senior only be given to a few, should be earned not by an
provisional recommendation of the many which artists lecturer in Industrial Design Technology, examination but by a method of selection by his
and designers are eager to establish. Only when we University of Manchester Institute of peers. It is important to realize that most art teachers
have attempted to extend human perception with new Science and Technology: are not themselves original artists and are therefore
media, to amplify creative thought with computers, not suitable people to do the selection.
to enforce a rigorous universal polemic, to adapt We should establish a panel of people who live pri-
design procedures to the cybernetics of urban life, Having read the text of Victor Willing's marily by the practice of painting and sculpture,
will we be sure of promoting the pressured inquiry interviews with Misha Black, Sir Herbert rather than by the teaching of these subjects, to
and learning which is demanded of 'art education' Read and Richard Hamilton, I can see that select a minority of students for entry to a small
in modern society. there are three important questions to be number of ateliers which would be administered
answered: separately from the professional schools of design.
* To be published in Cybernetica, No. 4, Dec. 1966, Having entered such an atelier the aspiring artist
obtainable from the Association Internationale de 1. Should the training of professional de- should be given optional courses of both a scientific
Cybernetique, Place Andre Rijckmans, Namur, Bel- signers be primarily visual and self- and an artistic character concerned with the apprecia-
gium. expressive or should it be primarily tion of both ancient and modern ways of life. These
logical and technical ? would, of course, be secondary to the practice of
2. What training, if any, should be given to painting and sculpture.
from William Johnstone, O.B.E., professional artists? What is the place of art schools in 'education for
formerly Principal at Camberwell School leisure'? I see this as perhaps the most important
3. What is the place of art schools in role of art schools in the future. Without doubt most
of Art and at the Central School of Arts
'education for leisure' ? people are capable of benefiting from perhaps a year
and Crafts:
My answers to these questions are as of education through art for leisure: and leisure is
follows: certainly going to be more important than work, pro-
I must say that it depresses me that the fessional or otherwise, in the not too distant future.
same points about first principles are still The training of professional designers, whether they This is the area where there is the greatest future for
are concerned with domestic products, furniture,
being debated in 1966 in the same debased training in visual appreciation, self-expression, and
buildings, textiles, graphics or whatever, should not the therapeutic aspects of art and design.
theological manner as they were when I be primarily visual and self-expressive, but neither Much more important than the leavening of art
taught at Hackney School of Art and the should it be primarily logical and technical. It needs schools with courses in liberal arts is the extension
Borough Polytechnic over thirty years ago. to be a mixture of both. There is, however, an im- of the freedom, perceptiveness, wholeness and en-
Like theologians, your contributors seem portant question of precedence. Designing for large joyment which differentiate an art school from, say, a
quantity production and large tooling costs implies
unable to agree even to define their terms technical college, to a much larger proportion of the
that the decisions which a designer takes are going whole population. Many of the ills which are said to
and I would not like to add any 'active ideas' to affect the fortunes of many other people. Therefore assail our society, among which is the lack of demand
not the outcome of profound thought—pace professional designers must be prepared and trained
for 'good design', spring from a general lack of dis-
Mr Hamilton. I am sorry that, as an old to accept a social obligation which need not, and in crimination and sensitivity in a population that is only
protégé of mine, Mr Hamilton is out to deny fact should not, apply to artists. just beginning to recover from the grim but necessary
This obligation is one which limits the area in which
experience in his syllabus. My own experi- experience of the industrial revolution. Art teaching
designers are free to search for solutions to their methods which are deliberately artistic have much
ence, when I had to deal with all these problems. Students of design must therefore be less place in the training of professional designers,
problems—and more—as Principal at Cam- taught from the start to formulate, or at least to and in that of original artists, than they do in the
berwell in 1938 and at the Central in 1947 accept, a specification of requirements which their education for leisure of everybody else.