Page 30 - Studio International - October 1970

unhopefully expected to resolve.' financial endowments could be diverted to Ecology is essentially about ever-changing
Mr James illustrates the 'specialist' case with some more culturally central aim? structural relationships, and transformations
the views of Sir Robin Darwin and Robert There are certain subjects which can be in time. In a sense, human language has al-
Goodden. Darwin 'believes that specialism is studied as disciplines in their own right, in as ways been building ecological models to con-
the key to quality. "You will never learn much much depth and academic detail as is desired, trol and predict events in an often hostile
about quality", he says, "unless you dig a deep and which yet open unlimited windows on to environment.3
and narrow furrow." ' (Sir Robin Darwin is human experience and knowledge in general. If we follow Chomsky and other linguists who
evidently a champion of Earth Art.) Goodden, Among these interdisciplinary subjects are insist that language is a uniquely human
professor of silversmithing and jewelry at the cybernetics and general systems theory, inbuilt ability of prime importance,4 then the
Royal College, is quoted as being concerned linguistics and ecology. Between these inter- best educational systems are those which most
for competence and efficiency, apparently disciplinary subjects themselves there is a encourage the development of what is already
conceived in a commercial design context. network of relationships. within the pupil. q
Both these spokesmen for the 'specialist' design Some believe that art schools should remain
case seem fairly representative. Norbert Lyn- committed to an emphasis on the visual arts, John Hilliard exhibited recently at the Lisson
ton's comment on those who want 'indepen- and I do not wish to challenge that view here. Gallery Warehouse some photographic work
dent, undisturbed professional training in But as soon as it is conceded that there should and also an interesting luminescent installa-
design' is an adequate rejoinder: be no restriction in principle on media or tion. The basement room was lit in a simple
`I should be sad to see these people permitted to techniques, a general policy for the develop- two-phase cycle. During the first phase, ultra-
turn an education programme into a cannon-fodder ment of art and design education may be violet light is used to cause a familiar fluores-
production line for Madison Avenue. There is evi- formulated. The vacuum in art education cent effect. But during this phase the ultra-
dence that the students would resist this.'1 exists because its terms of reference are un- violet light charges up for several minutes a
It is Mr James's illustration of the 'generalist' academic and vague, and therefore interest- phosphor-based photoluminescent tape which
case that is misleading, whether through ingly vulnerable. The strongest future for art is stuck onto the walls, in large rectangular
genuine or false naiveté. He cites two pro- and design education surely lies in a focusing shapes, and onto the staircase. During the
fessors of the Open University, one of whom, on environmental research. Architectural second phase, the luminous tape alone lights
Christopher Jones, the Professor of Design, education is also a promising area, but in the room, its brightness gradually fading, till
apparently believes, quite reasonably, that practice the architectural profession is so the first phase begins again.
`A designer's real work in the modern world lies in yoked to the property and building industries Is it over-literary to read into this work an
matters like the creation of airports, or the re- that many architects with vision, such as those analogy, with the cosmic rhythms of day and
designing of them to take larger aircraft, the who run the journal Architectural Design, have night, summer and winter, by which energy
establishment of great new industrial complexes, the to remain conceptual architects. Art educa- is renewed and stored? The artist denies this
solution of traffic problems.' tion is not yoked to industrial design—yet. interpretation, but such a denial is not con-
We thus slide from Hornsey, and Mr James's Ecology considered as an interdisciplinary clusive. q
patronizing remark on student revolt, to a list science should be the foundation of any course JONATHAN BENTHALL
of complicated 'systems design' tasks. But what in environmental studies. Any complete view
is significant about this list—jumbo jets, fac- of 'human ecology' must take due account of
tories, traffic engineering—is that all the tasks human technology, but it must also remember 1 Norbert Lynton, 'Waiting for Coldstream', Studio
are conceived of as commissioned by the the primacy of natural processes and organic International, September 1969.
existing socio-industrial system. What about life. The pressures on educational institu- 2 'The Relevance of Ecology', September and Decem-
ber 1969.
the students who hate large aircraft, or who tions to turn out merely efficient professionals
3 Here it must be remembered that the physical en-
are worried by the effect of great industrial could thereby be firmly and rationally re- vironment which we know is, like the language we use,
complexes on human relations, or who want sisted, all technical and industrial processes a cultural construct. Language is a model of the sym-
white bicycles instead of motor-cars in cities, being exposed to a disinterested ecological bolic world as well as of the scientific world. For this
like the provos ? This is where art, rather than scrutiny. reason one of the most luminous contributions to the
current ICA series of ecology lectures may well be that
design, comes in. Ecology is the syntax of nature. For laymen
of Mary Douglas, Professor of Social Anthropology at
By all means get rid of the seedier aspects of today to grasp world ecological issues in all University College, London. Professor Douglas's
the existing art school system and introduce their complexity is like trying to parse a lecture, 'Environments at Risk', on 28 October, will
some 'systems men', as James describes Pro- fractured jargon. But the next generation will propose a phenomenology, as opposed to a science, of
fessors Holister and Jones—it might be equally approach these issues freshly, with all the environments, with special reference to pollution, which
(she writes) 'lies in the eye of the beholder. To some
accurate to call them technocrats. But if art human resources of articulation at their extent we listen to the scientists, to some extent we make
education becomes a mere annexe of tech- command. The educational system should our own interpretations and selections from what they
nology, society will have lost a valuable chan- try to hasten, clarify and enrich this process. say...The anthropologist finds that nearly every tribe
nel for articulating regenerative dissent. Mr I have already suggested in these pages the has a tightly structured theory about kinds of dangerous
James does not illustrate the generalist case relevance of ecology to art and education.2 behaviour which put the human race at risk.'
4 The exact relationship between semantics and syntax
properly because his idea of generalism' is not There is good reason to reject the ecological
is perhaps the most crucial and controversial issue in
generalist enough. He is not interested in art, pessimism so popular today as premature. It linguistics. But it is impossible to use the term 'syntax'
and I see nothing in his article to indicate is only fairly recently that scientists have given today without considering such powerful concepts of
that he is interested in education. much priority to biological processes at a syntactical linguistics as Chomsky's transformational
It is, I think, a fallacy that breadth and depth super-organismic level. Most of us were taught notation and his theory of deep and surface structures.
My argument relating language to ecology is perhaps
are mutually incompatible in education. The at school to classify and dissect nature. The
underpinned by suggestions made by scientists at the
first task should be, surely, to decide what ecological approach teaches us to construe 1968 Alpbach symposium, organized by Arthur.
subjects, out of the whole vast spectrum of and articulate her. Koestler, that these linguistic concepts have apparent
human knowledge and experience, should be Language itself is a kind of model (in the parallels in the complex hierarchical orderings studied
studied and taught. Silversmithing is a noble mathematical sense) of environmental pro- in various branches of biology. (See Beyond Reductionism,
ed. A. Koestler and J. R. Smythies, London 1969).
and historic craft, and long may it flourish. cesses. Man's special ability to give shape and
There is also evidence that hierarchic language-like
But is it not possible that, where there are meaning to the flux of experience must have structures are characteristic of cerebral activity in
university chairs in silversmithing, their been very important during his evolution. general, and not just of speech and writing.