wanderer

In a not too distant future, we glimpse.

Across these wastes, light reflects upon the harsh sand with a golden glow. Speckled with the memories of life and days long past, ruins sit melancholically silhouetted by rolling dunes. Concrete columns jut from the earth, almost mimicking the unique and mesmerizing patterns of nature.

Tiny in this mass expanse of a once considered great place, a wanderer marches on in the heat. They are looking for something; anything that could be recovered. 

Tirelessly, possibly out of necessity? 

Although the majority of what is found is worth no more than scrap metal, for only a moment, the harsh glint of a foreign object catches the eye of the wanderer. Curiously they approach, eagerly hoping to find something of value.

The small reflective object lay dormant, sleeping in what seemingly should have been its final resting place. The wanderer notches their finger into the fittingly sized hole in the center and rises up examining the curios; a mirror-like circular pattern creates a picture of themselves, returning a vague image of their curious expression back at them.

The wanderer excitedly flips over the foreign object, and is met with a cool matte blue. Etched across it the first line in bright yellow reads “Flying Microtonal Banana”, the second “King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard” these strange combinations of ancient language fall flat on the eyes of the wanderer.

Without much more thought, the item is placed into a small satchel with the rest of the day's haul.

Much later, as darkness begins to replace the light of day, the wanderer is in a small bustling market. The aroma of foods attack the nose, the sounds of hecklers invade the ears, the many colors and faces assault the eyes. Amongst the ruin, the world is still spinning, and the people are still here.

The wanderer is now attempting to haggle today's haul with a scrap dealer, hoping to get a few extra Shyll for the strange curios they found in the sand. To their surprise and disappointment, however, nobody seems interested in the item that reeks of the past. It has no material value to them.

Later, as they wander through a maze of stalls and vendors on the way to their current accommodation, they find a small stall filled with strange objects and ancient texts. The old man within greets them with a gentle smile, beckoning them to peruse the many wonder-filled oddments on offer.

Although they are tired and weary by now, they decide to give selling the object in their satchel one last chance. They reach for the small disc-like shape and show it to the stall owner, who’s eyes widen, glistening with a youthful glow at the sight.

“Ah, yes! How wonderful! I listen to those often myself!” says the shopkeeper happily.

“Listen to them?” replies the wanderer humorously, writing off the shopkeeper “How can you listen to this?”

“Easily!” quips the shopkeeper, “I have a machine for them, I recovered it many, many years ago.”

The wanderer's expression slowly turns from playful to curious, “What do they say?” they ask, impatiently.

After some thinking, the shopkeeper replies “Well… It’s actually a form of music. At Least that’s what I think, it’s pretty strange. As for what they say, I couldn’t tell ya, It’s all in ancient language, and I’m no Scholarite.”

“Music, on a small object such as that!” replies the wanderer in amazement, their hunger and exhaust seemingly gone from their body. “I can’t imagine how the ancients could have done that.”

“Would you like to give it a listen? Truth be told, I'm very curious myself!” The shopkeeper exclaims.

Nestled behind the stall, the wanderer is guided through curtains and doors into a small, messy apartment. Along the back wall a dusty, large machine sits idly on top of an old wooden shelf. The machine itself appears just as foreign as the mirror-like object to the wanderer. Complicated woven meshes and metal parts create an otherworldly finish. This machine is certainly from the old world, the wanderer thinks.

The old shopkeeper, however, is all too familiar with this anomaly. A hatch pops open, and the item is placed into the device with a small audible click. Like a mechanic tending to his vehicle the shopkeeper masterfully moves around knobs, presses buttons, and tinkers with the machine. The wanderer watches in amusement, taking in the scene.

After some work, the old shopkeeper announces “Well, it seems like a good bit of it is damaged, but I think I got this one working.”

Both the wanderer and shopkeeper await eagerly for the sounds to start. The disc begins to spin and the two are met with a scratching, screeching noise that quickly fades into the start of a melodic and alien sound. The tune starts out fuzzy and indecipherable, but slowly becomes more coherent.

𝅘𝅥 

M-lt—-g

Me—-ing, melti—-, -elti-g

m---ing

—-ltin-, melting, melti-g

Conflagrated and cremated

When the world is consummated

Devastated, populated

World of isolated mortal folk

The earth is melting down

Our home and our playground

Won't be fit for our children when our world

Has melted down

Melting

Melting, melting, melting

When the wanderer picked up the CD in the sand, they had no idea what it was. Furthermore, when they got to listen to the CD, the message being conveyed was the world they now lived within. Humans have been creating these warning signs about the direction of society for ages. 

Tales passed on over the flames of a crackling fire.

Drawings in a cave that warn of beasts and poison.

Language etched into tablets, telling of great disasters.

The melody of a song that warns of days to come.

The digital landscapes of a game ravaged from nuclear weapons.

The sign in a power plant illustrates the skull and crossbones.

Fictional stories have been created by us to pass down our lessons and teach our children from the very beginning, and yet in this oversaturated state of media, it seems we take for granted the stories and tales we hear.

What happens when we stop wandering? When we listen to those short stories once again? Will we understand?

a tale of an old phone

The old phone sits quietly, it’s life run course

A melancholic feeling of planned obsolescence

Not broken, yet I am sad for the phone

There is no conscience in this modern tool

Brains and veins replaced by circuitry

Not thinking, yet I am sad for it’s thoughts

When it is gone, will it feel sad?

A short life, to be used and tossed aside

Not breathing, yet I am sad to say goodbye

My new phone now sits within its box, waiting

It takes days for myself to finally be ready

Not alive, yet I am sad to make it wait

The old phone rests on the desk where I work

The melancholy returns when my gaze drifts by

A machine, yet I am sad all the same

middletonism, education, and the design field

Previously we established what “Middletonism” could possibly be and defined a manifesto based around my belief systems. When thinking about the design field; how can we incorporate all these beliefs and maintain this level of freedom both within myself as an educator, but also within those who I will be teaching and influencing in the future.

We are born free. All of us.

From the moment we are born into this world, we are free. Acting as authority, society bottles up and compartmentalizes that freedom. Humans are separated by margins, class, race, intelligence, and many other factors. Like an assembly line, we are tagged and marked, ready to move onto the next stage. 

Conditioning starts early, and never stops. In a society where freedom is neutered at birth, I wish to fight to counter that culture. Choice should no longer be taken away from the equation. 

In the lens of myself, I interpret the pursuit of freedom as the escape from the system of capital. I simply want to live while being able to pursue and explore whatever and however I want, without the worry of authoritative hierarchies, the need for money, the stress of paying for what should be rightfully ours, and the fight to live.

In the lens of the educator, I do not wish to force any ideas or concepts onto those who I am teaching. They are free to do and believe as they wish, and if they are interested in exploring further I will be a more than welcoming guide. 

In the classroom, the voices of the students are paramount. 

If they do not like a project, why not change it up? Why not let that student do something entirely different from the class if they wish? Who says we need to stay strict and firm with every person at all times.

Create empathy within each other.

There is a common myth revolving around the belief that people who think like myself are radicalized by politics and other radicalized thinkers around us. Although it is true that we learn from all things around us including propaganda, familial values, social conditions, etc. There is a simple reason for this line of thinking.

Empathy. Basic human empathy.

I did not get “radicalized” by reading leftist leaning literature, in fact I didn’t get to those books until well after. I got “radicalized” by watching bombs fall on innocent children. Is it so extreme in this modern society to feel for someone other than yourself or your family?

When I look to the east and see bombs fall, the south to see hurricanes rampage, the west to see people starving, and the north to see ice caps melt. I looked at the world and the world was crumbling, I wanted to know why. I was angry, I was sad. 

Are you not sad? Are you not angry? Do you not wish to understand why all this is happening?

In an educational setting, I think it’s very important to give a real and accurate depiction of the world these young students are going into to work, live, and possibly make change. 

Slacktivist design projects that leave no deeper meaning other than to pursue a surface level issue for a grade as a sense of validation from your “master” are not welcome in my classroom. If you are pursuing design as activism, actual research and dedication is an absolute necessity.

Reach for a world without constraints.

The cliche of the schooling system is that it teaches you that every person can be whatever they want to be. An astronaut, an engineer, an artist, whatever you wish is within your reach.

Reality, however, tends to disagree.

This illusion of choice ignores the millions of problems the world faces. For every hope and dream students may have rises more issues and constraints. Consider the challenges of an oppressed minority to become an astronaut, let alone the conditions they may have grown up in providing proper education to be allowed to get into a good college. The strings of privilege are thin and hidden, but ever still present.

Realistically, the dream of being whatever you want to be is always going to be myth as long as we live in capital. The system needs its slaves, those working minimum wage to keep the cogs of modern society moving. How ironic to spout these ideals of freedom to the children in which you fully intend to keep working forever; in debt or in grocery stores.

Break down the barriers of capital.

Bridging from the last section, we need to separate our lives from the grips of capital. In this system it is completely understandable to just wish to make a living. To hope to be well off enough that the capitalism pill is a little easier to swallow until retirement.

However that is not the only path, understanding there are other career paths outside of the traditional designer was not something I had the privilege of learning until I got to masters school, so I spent my time learning traditional logo design and publication with the intention of working for a boss or corporation. 

Writing, Art, Activism and all felt infinitely far away.

For students I want to make sure this is understood as an option early. That you can be more than a corporate shoe–shiner with your career. That there are educators, critical thinkers, writers, and more. Students should be taught to be prepared for corporate work (It would be cruel to not teach that and throw them into the field), but also given the opportunity of expanding their personal work and interests.

We must respect the time and freedom of the students. We must recognize that there are issues outside of the classroom that they could be facing. We must recognize that they may be taking 6 other classes and juggling a job out of necessity. We must change accordingly to each student's needs, not push their needs into a mold of our making.

Something not common in the undergraduate space and sometimes lost even on the master level.

Never stop learning; Nobody does.

A common misconception that seems to be present all too often is the idea that the teacher in the classroom is a master, here to impart their knowledge upon the student as a one way relationship. Paolo Friere called this “The Banking Model of Education.”

My major problem with this model is the idea that the teacher as master in this situation believes they can not be wrong, thus creating an environment where students are creating work in pursuit of the personal aesthetics and beliefs of the master. This cuts off creativity in favor of fast reproduction and the chasing of validation.

An educator never stops learning. They are only human as well. They are not the leading authority on the field, they simply spent their time learning to get where they are now. The problem of ego steps in, experience, accomplishment, and age becomes a weapon of infantilization.

This removal of this hierarchy will create issues of course, any change will. However, a classroom without hierarchy may find a greater sense of purpose and education. 

The mental state of students is as important as their careers, and by showing them that we are also vulnerable and cognizant of these problems, we may be able to begin making the world a little better.

Respect and use all forms of media.

Growing up in the age of technology, I recognize that some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned have come from within the digital world. Music, Games, Art, Literature, Manga, Anime, Movies, etc. There is intention and motive behind all pieces created by the hands of humans.

Academia seems to discredit many of these options as sources, seeking only refuge in its traditional means of education through classic literature and the occasional film. Although it’s gotten a lot better now, there’s still possibly a level of the student being uncomfortable with the idea of converting these topics due to a past experience with it.

Every person experiences media differently, some may become extremely deeply immersed in it and start to analyze every part. Even if we fail to understand or lack context, is it right to invalidate their experiences? 

Some people learn better in control of a character rather than reading about them on a page, and that’s a perfectly valid form of learning.

Write to change perspectives.

I was not born to hold a gun. Nor was I born to kill another being. My idea of revolution is a little different, instead I write to bring forth new perspectives and foresights into the world that may help to slowly create change in our field and outside of it.

A lot of the discourse in modern society comes from a lack of understanding. It takes a lot to step into the shoes of another person and see things from their point of view. Once you add the spices of your personal beliefs, a wall is created between you and the other side.

This is not to say that some are beyond mutual understanding. There are times in life where beliefs had to be fought against, such as the rise of fascism in the 1940s. The wave of fascism feels as if it is rising again, and it is truly terrifying.

If I can use my writing and unique perspectives to help change the views of even one reader, then I have accomplished something worth fighting for.

Aim to create personal revolutions.

I want my readers, students, community, friends, and family to walk away with these new perspectives and outlooks on life, and then use that to attempt to the people in their life in a similarly meaningful way. I call these personal revolutions.

In the classroom, these revolutions can come in the form of new ideas and furthering a collaborative effort towards a new, more healthy classroom environment mixing all of the ideas from before. Fostering growth and community among those who I am advising towards their futures. Perhaps change will happen, perhaps something will come out of it all.

Realize that this is not a selfish act.

There exists a feeling of selfishness, or indulgence within the idea of believing both my work and my teaching can have such an impact. Or that I am not just rambling to myself, bitter about the world and hoping desperately for change.

In these moments, I have to let go of these thoughts and remind myself that I am here.

That it is not selfish to act out of self interest when it is not at the expense of another. 

It’s okay to believe in myself and my ability. 

It’s okay to be upset at the systems around me.

It’s okay to talk about subjects beyond the design field. 

It’s okay to make mistakes, to not be perfect.

It’s okay to wish to…

Be Free.

That is the Middleton manifesto. or at least a first draft of it? To claim to ever be finished would be contradictory to the lessons I teach myself. Slowly my point will grow sharper, my words imbued with more direct intention. I am always learning, and I am always attempting to improve.

This is what it means for me to pursue freedom.

kingdom of rust

The Appalachian mountains

Turn orange and red

Much like the factories

In this kingdom of rust

The Appalachian rivers

Run brown and yellow

Much like the sulfur

In this kingdom of rust

The Appalachian towns

Sit white and gray

Much like the tunnels

In this kingdom of rust

The Appalachian people

Are black and blue

Much like the region

In this kingdom of rust

on autonomy

The word autonomy possibly comes from the early 17th century: the Greek’s “Autonomia”(from autonomos) meant ‘having its own laws’, autos being the ‘self’ and nomos being the ‘law’. When you interpret the modern meaning of autonomy we often refer to concepts such as freedom of choice and expression. 

With that context, autonomy is often used interchangeably with the word freedom. Often, we see autonomy as complete freedom, making choices based only on your own environment and not affected by the other conditions around you. 

I think this really doesn’t work for some key reasons.

In the terms of an Anarchist such as myself, I believe that autonomy is something that you choose to sacrifice at the behest of another or of a group. I’ve been asked questions such as “If I am living in an anarchistic society, how can that society have any rules without sacrificing my freedom?” and my answer to that is actually way more simple than it seems.

In a truly free society, you are led by your autonomy to make choices that suit your wants or needs, without constricting upon the freedom of others. When you join a collective, essentially creating a small society, you have decided to withhold certain individual freedoms as your own autonomous decision.

To give an example of this, let’s look at the average relationship between two lovers. Both are free, autonomous beings that have chosen through bonding to be together as a unit. Thus, when one person's needs exceed the other halfs, a “sacrifice” of freedom takes place. 

Let’s say one person wants to cover themselves in tattoos as a form of expression, but their partner does not like that idea, and creates a compromise between the two allowing them to have tattoos, but only an acceptable amount. You could view this action as restricting a partner's freedom of expression, thus reducing their autonomy.

In reality, the person who wanted tattoos in this case is choosing to actively sacrifice this freedom to remain in a healthy and positive relationship. The compromise creates a collective understanding that these rules in place exist to maintain happiness, while still allowing freedom.

This could extend to any aspect of a relationship not only in a romantic sense, but with one's relationship with society. The individual makes sacrifices for a collective purpose that they may believe in, and that sacrifice causes society as a whole to function on a much more free and personal basis. 

This seems like a very simple way of defining any system of government, however there is a very large difference between a society in which you are forced to participate simply by being born, and that of a society in which you are free to join and take part of, but also to exit any any time when the values don’t align with yours anymore.

And that is where autonomy becomes confusing in the modern context. The relationship between the choice of a person and the society they live in is no longer symbiotic, instead, a person is pressured into making decisions within a confined and controlled version of autonomy. This governing society tells the individual that they must actively contribute and participate in the systems it has established, with no free choice to exit.

The worst part is that we are led to believe that we have a choice. In many talks of mine with people who believe in the modern American ideals, I’ve been told “If you don’t like this place, why don’t you just leave?” They don’t realize the systems in place that make that decision extremely difficult, or that there's really nowhere you can go in the world right now to solve this specific issue in the first place.

becoming the onlooker

Can we, only for a moment, step outside and attempt to view our culture and society as if an onlooker. Before you lies a vision of the world, the values of modernity in which we hold up flash before your eyes at unknowable speed.

Our fantastic metal machines zip by on gray, monotonous roads. The complex web of roadwork leads towards a stunning metropolis.

A vibrant street in the night paints the shadows of hundreds of people walking, a somber lady in a red velvet dress calls a cab.

The stunning shine of a gold wristwatch is seen, only for a moment. The flashes of cameras beckon forth the picture of a newly appointed rising talent.

These are only a select few of the moments you manage to catch in this stream of consciousness. To us who were born into this society we find these things so natural, so necessary in our world. Now, you are confused by all that happens. The world is foreign, you have lost all context for why any of this exists in the first place.

Like a newborn child learning about the world, you look on in amazement and curiosity.

Whiplash. Your vision stirs, A new picture begins to form.

A man at a drive-thru orders a bucket of chicken wings, he is the only one in the car. A child searches the trash can for any semblance or scrap of a meal they can find.

An empty vacation home sits near the beach in silence, the colors of autumn begin to show. A man lays on a bench in the park nearby, cold.

A lifeless drone lays waste to a village, creating a vivid canvas of blood and rubble. The drone operator talks about his wife and kids to a coworker.

When you become the onlooker, gazing upon society without the context and reasoning, what would you feel? Watching over the people, like ants, going forward and backward to the same place every day. Their short lives dedicated to something that looks empty; devoid of meaning.

Would you feel sad?

But you are not the onlooker, you are human. You exist in this system, yet you feel as if you stepped outside of your world and viewed another, one you are not a part of. You watched wars take the lives of innocent children, you watched poverty sweep through many countries after a hurricane, you watched people be denied a place to live and wither away in the streets of a wealthy metropolis, you watched families wonder when their next meal will come, if ever.

When you were the onlooker, you wept.

Now that your learned and lived experiences of society and culture have returned, your tears seem to have dried up.

consumerized, corporate, and grey

I am a designer? Right?

Formally there really is no question, I have a degree in Graphic Interactive Design (or whatever fancy words are on the slip of paper) so of course I am, by trade, a designer. Yet there exists this conflict inside me, am I really a designer?

I’ve grown to hate the world of graphic design. 

Consumerized, Corporate, and Grey.

Everything about my education in the design world up until now has become this: Who makes the best logos? Who has the best rates? Who runs the best side-hustle? Who has the most clients? Who has the largest online presence? Who can etch the values of the corporate world into their hearts best and will make it the furthest in said world.

I’ve only ever enjoyed making designs in the interest of self service, making love letters to hobbies or pieces of media I’ve grown attached to. I feel dislocated from it all, while peers celebrate visiting designers or lectures where we learn about studios, client work, and brand initiatives.

The most comfortable I’ve felt since joining this field is with a pen and paper. I still love the concept of graphic design, I love the type, colors, layouts and more created by others. Rather than seeing it as for the purpose of monetary gain, I enjoy it more as art than I do as communication. I enjoy hearing the unique problem solving and solutions a designer has come up with, yet I hate the systems and clients the solutions were made for. 

I am a hypocrite, but we’re all sometimes hypocritical I guess.

I’ve enjoyed the many writings I have made about the design field before; talking about movements, aesthetics, or how we can do better in the design field. I’ve also written a lot about education and pedagogy, exploring how to foster better environments for students while showing them alternatives from a system hell bent into turning them into a product.

I just love reading and learning, then writing about what I’ve read and learned, in hopes of communicating an idea to others. That doesn't just extend to the design and education topics I’ve addressed, instead, I love to write about much more than that. 

Inside me I begin to wonder whether I’m slipping away from Graphic Design as part of who I am.

I wonder if that’s okay, if I can be an educator in the design field while simultaneously viewing the field this way.

I wonder if I am allowed to talk about things outside of this bubble. Is it okay to simply address freedom, with no intention of tackling some great design issue?

I wonder if any of these feelings are valid. Am I simply acting alone in some self service that society will view as incorrect.

It takes a lot to get these feelings in check, with a half confident grin I tell myself what I am doing is valid, that the problems lie in the systems around me. After a heavy wave of these anxious thoughts, I look back at my paper. My mouth feels dry; I sip some water. 

Once again, without much inner thought, my fingers slide across the keys in a monotonous yet infatuating rhythm.

The original name for this writing before I started was “I just want to write.” That surely is an understatement, I thought maybe that having a writing semester would free me from the chains of needing to make. In my mind, maybe it was possible I would begin to make again without these pressures. 

I think I was wrong. I simply don’t feel the need to make. 

Making feels like it needs to be for something. 

That I need to have some grandiose content or idea to push forward, whether for a client or as activist work or anything. Without that pressure telling me to make, staring at a canvas feels empty. I don’t want to work without meaning, I’d rather be reading, playing a game, hanging out at a coffee shop, writing, or really any other activity that I naturally lean towards when I have spare free time.

This ties in a lot with how I view the field and hustle culture. The need to grind and work outside of office hours is ingrained into society like an ancient curse mark. Since making design has become such a consumerized idea, design has become a system of work for us. To make design feels like work because of that.

What does design freedom look like?

Can you truly be a graphic designer and make only for yourself?

Will it ever not feel like work?

Am I a writer? Am I a Graphic Designer? Am I a Design Writer? Am I a creator? Am I an artist? Am I something else entirely?

These labels don’t matter in the end, but I want to figure out who I am in this world, how I can fit into the puzzle while preserving my own identity and beliefs.

Reading my writing back, I realize the amount of damage that growing up in this system has done. To me, to my life, to my career, to my dreams. The amount of doubt and confusion it has sowed into my life, making living while maintaining these ideals feel like an insurmountable mountain. Lucky for me, I already started learning how to climb. I have the tools and thoughts available to me to find an answer, I just know it’s going to take a lot of time to get there.

“your gift to design”

So we talked in the previous writing about what the idea of “Middletonism” could be, an attempt at defining what makes myself unique in a field where many are doing the same. At my residency in Colorado this past July, I was asked the following question by Natalia; “What do you think the gift you are willing to give to design is?”

I think I took that question a little harshly. I started by simply saying my intentions in the field, donning the mask once again. Suddenly, a clear shift is noticeable, and I start attacking the question itself. I know I’m breaking the rules by sharing this (Natalia asked us not to share our words with others), but comparing it to the writing previously I find it to be very interesting to dissect.

What do you think the gift you are willing to give to design is?

“I want to make people think about the world from new perspectives outside of established canons, through the lens of storytelling and media.

I view many things from a different outside perspective, practicing and studying anarchistic viewpoints, connecting media, music, games, and other stories into the greater narrative of the design ethos. Let's talk about, rather than how I do that, instead how I can start to do that more.

The chemical slurry of designer, anarchist, young video essayist, photographer, multimedia creator, artist, writer, storyteller. I want to acquire those labels for myself as I venture further into VCFA and push myself into a world where I can both make for myself, and simultaneously create value for the world.

I want to entertain, create meaningful discussions, and foster more empathetic and creative thought all wrapped up in a pretty package for the viewer to easily digest. I want to talk about the world and how it operates, and show my students how that work may not be different now, but how it can be in the future.

Let's be honest, living sometimes isn't really the best thing, yet something we have to do. We're born into the world not of our own volition but instead of the choices of others. I think the key factor here then is what we make of this life we've been (forcibly) given.

Many are caught up in the belief that they must give a “gift” to society, that they are in debt to the government or an organization over them for allowing them to live peacefully. I don't follow that train of thought, especially in the context of a capitalist society that requires you to pay into the very idea of being alive in the first place.

It is not selfish, or evil, to want to rest on a beach and watch the waves. It is not selfish, or evil, to expect education and housing to be free. It is not selfish, or evil to want to be free from the chains of currency.

That being said, it is up to you to decide whether you wish to share a gift to society. There is no requirement that you have to. Your work or art can be meaningful to you, instead of others. Not all work has to be for others.

I chose, not of my own volition, but out of necessity. The freedom of choice in modern society is an illusion. I must make monetary gains for my services, I must provide a gift. The question then lies in the nature of our choice and our field, and how we can make the most of our situation and figure out how to live happily in this environment.”

So much here aligns very well with what I said before, but there is a key difference between this and that of “What of Middletonism”; the intention to share.

Without any intention to share this, I let loose and allowed myself to freely speak to what I believed. The mask came off, I realized that in this small moment that I was alone in a room with myself, only echoes ringing out. Yet, like a switch being turned on, these words now come out easily as if they were repressed emotions. I had no intention to share, but now I do, and yet I’m still speaking the same way. In my writing, I do not need the mask.

This small writing I made and my others from that session had me thinking all throughout residency, and as I spoke to my beliefs in the conversations that proceeded that day, I found the filter was loosening more and more. Without that key moment, I don’t think I would have answered “What is Middletonism” the same way, I would have donned the mask and talked on and on about my grandiose intentions and ideas about how my work would be.

When did I let myself become so obsessed with work, when did it become more important to me than my personality, when all I needed to answer was “What do I believe?”

I can feel a clear shift in my attitude with writing now. I know that I used to be so caught up in a pressure that I couldn't explain. Teachers, Friends, Family; I felt as if I needed to become great in every person's eyes. This hasn’t gone away completely of course, it’s only human to hope that others will like you for who you are.

When that want becomes a limiter, stopping you from releasing your true thoughts and feelings into the world, this becomes an entirely different problem. Who cares if someone reads my work and scoffs at the idea, calling me a disillusioned anarchist and throwing out my opinions? I need to realize that this work I am doing isn’t for them in the first place. That I’m working not only for myself, but for those who are open enough to be willing to hear these ideas.

Being genuine is not an easy task, but I feel now more than ever it is a necessity for us as a society. We must shatter our masks and bring down the barriers we have built between us. If we are not able to talk to one another, we will come to the conclusion that we must fight to make society better. There are times when that is in fact necessary, but only as an absolute last resort. Even as an anarchist, I can easily see that.

So what should my gift to design be? What should I willingly give to the design world which I am so conflicted on?

I had a great start in this previous writing, but let my frustrations leak out and take over the question. Post residency, post “What is Middletonism?”, how would I answer that question if it was to be asked to me now?

Well, really what I’m doing is propaganda. I want others to believe in my vision for the world, I want them to learn a more empathetic and open response to differing opinions and ideas. A key difference however is that I do not want to force anyone to believe in my ideals. I simply want to offer opposing viewpoints and arguments in a “Hey, have you considered this?” sense. 

This doesn't change the fact that it is still propaganda. Any person with a belief creating with the intention of changing the opinion of another is still making propaganda, whether there is hostile intentions behind those ideas or not.

I believe in a lot of things. I think this is a great strength, a strong moral compass and the ability to critically analyze all things in front of me. I’m natural to opposition, my stream often flows uphill. Together, I can attempt to use these unique abilities of mine to make small changes in the hearts of others. Whether or not that change happens is yet to be seen.

I know one thing clearly now. I want to be here, writing and formulating these thoughts to carry forward to my peers. This time, and possibly for the first time, I’m not working for the sake of others. 

I’m creating work that I want to create, and finding a path in the world that allows myself the freedom to continue making, writing, living, and learning for one more day on this earth.

what is middletonism?

Well, that’s a question, isn’t it?

In the world of creation, individual beliefs are often snuffed out for the sake of what we would call smart choices. As a kid, we may have dreamed of becoming an astronaut, a zookeeper, or a pirate. Then, society then brings down the cookie cutter, molding you while you are soft and malleable dough. We send our kids off to school to carve the meanings of authority and obedience into their very flesh and bone, snipping their wings before they are ever able to begin to learn to fly.

In the meanwhile, images of war, money, power, and government flood the history books in our classes from a young age. The single-sided interpretations of the ideas of freedom, righteousness, exceptionalism, and individualism are placed before you and read verbatim as the rule of law. No different from the rule of a God. The divine rights of the government you exist under have carefully crafted these conditions to create the perfect environment for the stripping of autonomy and voice.

To say this sounds like the start of a corny dystopian teen novel is not an exaggeration, and yet the dystopia becomes hauntingly real as we look to the news and media, seeing generations of a well researched and oiled propaganda machines turn out hateful rhetoric repeated day after day.

This is how I viewed the world I grew up in.

I felt as if I was being suffocated.

However, in reality, I was young and incapable of realizing these conditions at the time. The “me” of that time was simply angry and confused with the world, with all the rules, with authority. I didn’t know how to channel anything I was feeling, and I never felt like an artist at the time. 

Nobody around me seemed to share the same level of enthusiasm for media that I did, so I spent the majority of my time on a computer or reading books. I would watch shows, spend time talking to people from across the globe in online communities, read fiction about dystopian futures, and play games that introduced new concepts or ideas to me.

To many in my family, this looked like an addiction to the new digital tools that came with the start of a new millennium. To me, it was classic escapism. I felt as if nothing else could stimulate me, and nobody around me was willing to talk about any art, literature, or concepts the same way I would obsess over them. I could spend hours thinking about some crazy and fun idea such as Simulation Theory, nobody wanted to match that energy. 

Instead, the “adults” at the time just complained; about work, about money, about dreams that never came to fruition. At the time, I remember wondering why it seemed to me that everyone just hated being alive. Nowadays I realize that this was definitely a condition of the area I grew up in, the Appalachians are no stranger to many dying small towns like mine. That area feels like darkness, my heart feels heavy every time I go back. My girlfriend often asks me if I’m happy to be home when we visit, how do I answer that?

Like clockwork in a factory, the schooling system eventually breaks down the hopes and dreams of the children and repackages them into convenient little things called “Jobs.” Somehow the authority manages to re-appropriate these dreams and ambitions into the framework of capital. The starry-eyed children look on in wonder as the man in a gray suit explains that they will wake up at 8am every morning, drive their fancy new car to an office, do something meaningful for 9 hours a day, and then go home to a beautiful nuclear family. They cheer gleefully as he tells them that this is how it will be until the day they get to retire, having done their best to contribute to our wonderful society!

I personally never really had any real passion for work in the capitalist sense. I didn’t even have a plan for what to do after high school. In my head, I just wanted to keep consuming media, I wanted to keep experiencing new things. I wanted to be free. That’s why when my graduation came around, I hurriedly selected a trade school to study computer science. My reasoning for this at the time was “well, I kinda like computers, so sure.”

I just never understood the idea of it, to this day I guess I still can’t understand the reasoning for someone to enjoy doing a job such as marketing or analytics. Other than to simply make a living, it feels wrong to me to be happy spending 60-70% of your life doing what is essentially chores. My own personal ideas of life and freedom simply don’t work like that. I’ll never be happy working 8 hours a day on something that in the end means nothing to me, all for just enough money to pay rent and sometimes feel comfortable enough to “splurge.”

By that vein, I think that any form of me attempting to find work in my early stages was just an attempt at social masking. 

I was actively suppressing my want to be free from this system, I hadn’t had the time or space to develop any thoughts on why I felt that way. I can only guess years of being told that I was lazy, unmotivated, or immature for this way of thinking caused me to want to try to blend in, I had no idea where my future was headed at that moment.

This masking is something that I still feel today. My peers exclaim proudly their work-ethic, wearing 60-hour plus work weeks on their sleeves like trophies. (Unfortunately an all too common thing within the field of Design.) Am I supposed to join them in their glee for what is essentially being a slave to capital? Put frankly, I don’t care about your side hustle. I perceive no value in your 3 successful businesses. Instead, I feel sadness, a level of understanding of how much time you are wasting for nothing. Time that could be spent with your family. Time that could be spent for yourself. 

It is a sad thing to wake up one day, older and brittle, and realize how much time you will never get back.

This is of course different from those who are working those many jobs and side hustles as a matter of necessity. Those who are affected by the unfairness and brutality of a system designed for their failure. Power to those affected in that way, for they have no other choice. To live within the comfort and means for freedom and actively sacrifice it is an entirely different problem, one that is unique to a system that convinces you that you are a tool for commodification and capital.

When my trade school decided to close (an entire story in itself and product of late-stage capitalism), I spent a year in limbo wondering where my life was going. This was probably one of the lowest times of my life, mental health was at an all time low. This was not only due to my newly discovered hatred for the computer science and tech world, and specifically programming; but also due to my returning to the “region of darkness” I grew up in. Sadness, Hatred, and Complacency hung in the air like fog. I could feel it bearing down on me. I could feel myself slowly turning into it.

I’ve always been somebody who was creative in many ways, but that skillset never really showed itself in any form of “real work”. Instead, I would be that person in my friend group who was really good at building intricate things in games like Minecraft, decorating rooms in The Sims, making dumb memes in pirated versions of the Adobe Software’s, making short videos, or writing essays on random topics or ideas. Truthfully, and hopefully not in a braggadocious sense, I think all of these things came so naturally to me without even trying that I never gave it much thought. Creativity was so normal to me that I was confused by people who had lived without it. 

Maybe I still am somehow.

Having performed terribly in high school, and never finishing my trade school, I felt maybe my path with education was over. I contemplated a lot of things, I went over ideas that would have most likely led my life on a completely different path. I considered being part of the Peace Corps, Traveling and building houses in countries across the world. I considered teaching English in Japan through the JET program. I considered couch surfing and working for food and keep in random countries. In reality, I just wanted out of my current situation. I wanted to see the world, of course, but again I just wanted to be free.

I decided to randomly look around at colleges one day, and I slightly remember the name of Edinboro being mentioned from a guidance counselor trying to lead me towards Game Design. Although I have always been creative, I was deathly afraid of actually doing anything creative as work. I chose to do programming because I was worried about whether I could ever even succeed at anything like game design with no skills. 

I had many feelings related to imposter syndrome. How could I become an artist when I can’t even draw? Many nights I would lie awake, trying to fall asleep. My head repeated over and over “What are you afraid of?”, “Do you want to continue working at a gas station all your life?” and many more questions like that. I remembered my Graphic Design classes in high school, how I loved working with softwares to create cool effects. Maybe that could be an option. Designers need to know how to draw too. I could never do that. 

After weeks of this torment, time was ticking. I needed to apply. The acceptance letter came in the mail in july. One month before the semester starts. I had never stepped foot on campus. I had no idea what the classes were like. I felt a knot of dread inside me. Heading into an art school without ever even owning a sketchbook, I started back onto the path of education.

My first experience with college, going to that trade school, went terribly wrong. It felt like prison, we were forced to wear business clothes, had seven classes a day, a short 30 minute lunch break with no built in school food option, and a complete mountain of homework each day. It felt as if that school experience was no different than that of my high school.

This time, it was way more liberating. Classes respected your time and autonomy (to a degree), I felt as if I had some sort of freedom in this system. I could choose to learn what I wanted rather than being forced into boxes, and the class structures allowed for thought and ideas to fester inside of me. In those four years, I started to develop a true sense of personal beliefs and self for the first time.

I started to feel like I was developing real passion for a field of study. Design was working wonderfully for me, for the first time I felt I enjoyed the idea of working on something. To be honest though, looking back, maybe that was the mask trying to take me over. Eventually, I started to realize the difference between myself and the other designers too.

I was passionate about the field of design similar to how I am passionate about a game, or about keyboards. What I mean by that is that I love talking about design. Design concepts, design theory, design history, etc. When it comes down to the act of making, especially in the sense of the designer as a tool to be utilized by a company, a commodity, I didn’t even remotely care. 
There is a fundamental difference between those who make for the sake of making and those who make out of necessity.

I viewed the role of the commodified “Graphic Designer” as a necessity. I had no passion or care for annual reports, logos, and brand identities. 

I was masking by making those projects and pretending I cared, even if I do feel that I made great work. I did so simply because that was the environment around me, and everyone was attempting to convince me to mold to that system. In this field, there is a falsified meritocratic hierarchy present within the fabric of our work. The “highly competitive” notion that we must view each other as lesser or greater than one another. By the time I graduated, I felt a very conflicted wave of emotions.

I tried experimenting with how to be a graphic designer and retain my own freedom. No matter the test, I arrived at the conclusion that I simply couldn’t. No matter what, I needed to paint myself with advertisements, give myself catchy and trendy labels to fit in, and worry about useless things like social media presence and analytics that consumed my personal time. I needed to scratch commodification into my being, and become a tool to be used by another. I hated the feeling. I hated clients. Freelance wasn’t going to work either.

When I brought up these qualms with the industry, I was met with the same usual resistance that others spouted with preconceived notions about the field. Nobody seemed to understand what a Graphic Designer could be without commodity, without capital, let alone believe that we can exist without that. It seemed that I was completely isolated from them in how I viewed the field.

This also was reinforced by watching those who didn’t fit the mold of what a “meritocratically good modern designer” is get pushed away or criticized. If you didn’t follow rules exactly according to the needs and wants of the professors, teaching within the confines of a postmodern and bauhaus europeanized style of education, then you were not a good designer. Discussions about concepts, ideologies, beliefs, etc. were thrown out in favor of arguments about color, kerning, line weight, and other subjective elements that contributed only to a controlled and limited aesthetic. Then you wonder why we leave undergrad with carbon copy portfolios.

It’s so frustrating to see unnecessary limitations bear their teeth against the young and naive. Without even having a say, students are swept up into a world of rights and wrongs, told that this is the correct way to use a grid, this is the correct way to format type, this is the correct… etc. Autonomy is taken away in a flash as the student becomes a machine capable of regurgitating these beliefs, playing tug-o-war, the student sends in work they believe the professor will like, in hopes of receiving a juicy letter grade reward. If the grade comes back low, they simply dump their current aesthetic out the window and adopt a new, shinier, polished approach according to the teacher's personal subjective arguments.

It felt different at first, but I realized then that the undergrad experience was still no different than that of the high school classroom.

We are teaching design propaganda, and nobody is immune to it.

I’ve heard countless arguments on when a student is capable of taking on “higher levels” of education. Many a professor will argue that you need to teach foundational skills and ideas to be able to have students break that mold. To that end I agree. Yet in the modern academic world of design, I find that we never stop teaching these “foundational skills” and instead focus our entire undergraduate degrees dedicated to it. 

There's no time for theory, for critical thinking, for conceptual understanding on why a decision is made. Just the rights and wrongs that allow a student to go out into the world of design and make for a corporation for the rest of their lives. What about other careers in design, what about the writers, the critics, the educators, and those who design for themselves? Why do we not mention these are even options available to our students?

I’m not trying to blame the current professors of modern academia, by many metrics they are working within their means and could easily even agree with my positions. What I’m aiming my barrel at is not the people operating within the system itself, as the late thinker Michael Jamal Brooks says “Be kind to individuals, be ruthless to systems.” I also don’t believe that I’m above anybody here in any way, there is no “better”, only beautiful differences in ourselves.

Many of these thoughts came in the form of revelations upon arriving at VCFA. For the first time in my life it feels like being able to speak without constriction, being able to practice and study what I truly find interesting, without being dragged down by attempting to turn everything into some design project with surface level messaging.

When I first arrived at VCFA I was very much a victim of the machine of undergrad that I have described. I felt as if my wings had been clipped and that flight would never be attainable even after leaving the birdcage. I had no idea what I wanted or how to work for myself. I came into VCFA with the same mask I developed for Edinboro, touting my accomplishments and work like a peacock showing its feathers, attempting to establish a place in a ruthless meritocracy.

To my surprise, that hierarchy vanished in seconds, as the diverse group of people, both those that had accomplished way more than I had and those that hadn’t, embraced me with open arms. For the first time in my life, I no longer felt isolated, I felt as if I could talk about anything and get a thoughtful answer. I felt free.

But that small freedom has given me the ability to start the journey to becoming able to identify and locate freedom in my entire life. I feel as if I am closer and closer to understanding what I want to do with my life. I understand fully that I cannot live a life in this system without any compromises, and that I must navigate this world in an attempt to control what level of freedom I may be able to have.

The reason I have taken you on this journey is because I feel it is so important in establishing an answer to the question “What is Middletonism?” (and also because I seem to be incapable of telling a story or explaining something without 10 pages.) Having had the time and space to really think about this question, and being able to reflect upon my individual beliefs, I think I might have the beginning of an answer.

The lived and learned experiences we have throughout our lives are what give us our sense of self, our beliefs, and our mindsets. I have laid out a short summary of my education intertwined with commentary about why I’ve always been frustrated with these systems.

Clearly, from a young age I’ve hated restriction, life felt as if I was trapped in a birdcage. Authority was not used out of a necessity and instead used to oppress. I’ve spent my life searching for an answer in life, frustrated by the woes of a system that gives so little thought to the people within. As I gained more thought and knowledge through both self and formal education, I became capable of sharpening and pointing my blade towards what I now believe to be the “mechanisms” behind the problems that lie in front of me.

Maybe when I break down all barriers, simplify it to its core, “Middletonism” is the pursuit of freedom. 

And how does that apply to my career and my path? Teaching as a career for me is a want to free the students in academia and allow them to think without societal restraints like capital and hierarchy, allow them to think about what they want.

I was never built to hold a gun and burn down governments, instead, I can create my own small revolutions in the classroom.

On top of that, the want to teach is also a selfish want. Teaching feels to me as if it is the one world in the field of design that I am let free from making only for others. Free from the chains of capital that drag you down to hell. Instead, it is a position of nurturing others, attempting to help them navigate the cruel and unforgiving system they are presented with. Maybe I’m romanticizing the idea of teaching too much in writing. I know that it will be filled with hardships and compromises as well, and I will hopefully be prepared for that.

This same connection appears in my writing, where I feel most comfortable nowadays. I’ve always had a unique trait of being critical of anything I consume, which has been such a blessing but also a terrible curse. I can’t sit down and watch a show without wanting to comment on something I think could have been improved, or harping on what elements of the show were done well. It drives people around me nuts sometimes.

That’s exactly what I do when I begin to write. When I write a piece about freedom, or capital, or design, or work life balance I am really just venting about the weights in the world that I feel are weighing down on me most. That’s why I might as well use my ability to be critical of anything to tell a story of my unique perspective on it.

If I can bring forward an idea to someone who hasn’t gotten exposed to it yet and allow them to think a little differently, even just one person, I’ll be happy with that.

The Middleton Manifesto:

1. We are born free. All of us.

2. Create empathy within each other.

3. Reach for a world without constraints.

4. Break down the barriers of capital.

5. Never stop learning; Nobody does.

6. Respect and use all forms of media.

7. Write to change perspectives.

8. Aim to create personal revolutions.

9. Realize that this is not a selfish act.

10. Be Free

pedagogy of the oppressed

This review is based of Pedagogy of The Oppressed by Paolo Freire.

So, the educational system is broken.

We’ve established that in the last packet where we talked about the many stresses and anxieties that students go through today. But what can we do about it? Considering that the modern schooling system is a tool that is used for oppression and conditioning of students not the think for themselves, the only logical answer is the completely destroy and restructure the schooling system in its entirety.

Paulo Freire, the father of critical educational theory and a huge influence on modern educational tactics, believes that school should be more free and accommodating to those who have been oppressed, and lays out guides on how that oppression affects a child.

The “banking model of education” details current educational systems as a form of oppression through the punishment and humiliation of students by the teacher, who knows best in each and every situation regardless of context. The student is an blank slate, and the teacher must “deposit” their information into their heads, regardless of their lived situation.

Freire claims this system is enforced so that students remain docile and incapable of standing up and fighting against the forms of oppression enforced by the government, society, and other everyday life in modern day. The alternative style of education proposed by Freire is Problem Posing Education, with a focus on Dialogue, Discussion, and Shared Learning. The teachers job in this model is to introduce a problem relevant to the lived experience of the students, and the students, rather than sitting quietly and being uninvolved, are active participants in this system, communicating and creating their own solutions and theories within the space.

Students develop a critical consciousness about the world that engages them to be better able to problem solve and approach the many aspects of life. In the design classroom, for example, a advisor could introduce the problem “Are unpaid internships in the design field fair?”, this could create a discussion within the classroom leading to the students reflecting on fairness, the field of design, and the ethics of working without pay.

This leads to engaging dialogues between students that allow them to learn while practicing necessary skills such as communication and collaberation, while simultaneously not enforcing any certain way of thinking.

While allowing these modes of thinking to creep into the classroom, design students may also find themselves enjoying a topic enough to create a project on it. They can learn how to actively engage with modern social design problems, while also keeping their own autonomy on what types of projects they are making. If they have time to discuss and flesh out their projects, they may find more creative and elaborate approaches they could not have thought up on their own.

To continue in this line of thought, I believe an emphasis on collaboration in projects can help increase necessary social skills for when working in the field, but forced collaberation always . ends up with problems. Students should be encouraged to collaberate, however not required if they instead have an idea for a small solo project. Projects in this sense are freely made, and graded flexibly on effort and enthusiasm, rather than a hierarchical value of “quality” which branches towards thoughts on the philosophy of ungrading.

For example, in a corporate identity class, why must we have such a competitive format to the way we learn? The branding class in my undergrad was focused on individual, forced projects where we wouldnt even be allowed to choose our own location for our Olympics assignment, in my case, I drew Toronto, which I was entirely unenthused about. The argument for this is that in this career field, you don’t get to choose you clients.

How true is that? Most studios in the design space can very much deny a client for any reason, or as a freelancer choose to specialize in one type of design. There is a responsibility present for us, as educators, to ensure that the students we teach are prepared to be successful in the field. I agree that we must guide them, but the purpose of education is not only to create a worker. Creating critical thinking and engaged students is also part of our responibility, people ready to tackle the world as it is, which is not always a pretty sight.

Behind the mask of grades and degrees, a human with hobbies, interests, and life goals remains. Aspirations beyond that of work and and money. Some may have a deep passion for the field they study, some may only see the field as a means of making a living, and some both. In my view, being an educator is about helping a person grow.

Guiding them to whatever they feel is the right path for them, not lecturing them on the correct way to use Garamond. Teaching is a complex mixture of preparing them for this reality of capital, but trying to keep them in one one piece mentally on the way there. Even if that means we have to break down the barriers of “student” and “teacher” and be vulnerable again.

caps lock

This review is for the book CAPS LOCK: How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and How to Escape from It by Ruben Pater.

Through our time being raised in this capitalist centered economy and system, we’ve been taught to view the world through hierarchical eyes. Your job is equal to your status, your value is your wage. This meritocratic lifestyle, where those who “work hard” get the recognition they deserve and are paid accordingly, easily falls apart like a tower of playing cards at the slightest opposition.

But why do we look down on those who don’t feel particularly engaged in this hierarchy?

When we spout the ideals of freedom, we never explain the fine print of exactly what freedom means in our governments recognition of it. How very capitalistic of us. The anarchistic framework for freedom and action operates under the idea that freedom is exactly as stated, the right to do whatever you like with your life, at the one condition that you do not impose upon others freedoms.

This is how our system operates, to maintain our level of freedom and comfort in “first world” society, we impose upon and take away the freedom others could have. We underpay workers, drive children into forced labor, and build our corporations out of foundations established by the slave trade. As a part of the privileged in society, those who have the comfort of a warm home, the power of the internet, and the commodities of Starbucks and iPhones.

We are caught, bound within these systems, one would have to carry a book of corporate history into a supermarket to avoid brands that cause these conditions to people across the globe, and yet when they try they find brands without said connections, they walk out with next to nothing to stock their shelves. To boycott is near impossible, as humane or equitable alternatives simply cannot thrive on a market that drives prices down at the cost of others. The game was rigged from the start. This problem is and institutional, not individual one.

In a fantastically written analysis of design history, Pater points out the uncomfortable truth tying design in with historical oppression, colonialism, and imperialism behind the people who created the design profession. The most difficult part of this topic, however, is identifying which ways we can fight against this history while simultaneously acknowledging the damages done by the profession to the oppressed, especially as a priveleged person such as myself.

As said by some of the example studios featured in the book, to build an ethical design collective is very hard. One thing that Ruben Pater talks about a lot is the usage of the commons, a form of skill sharing/ trading in the shape of a community. I’ve always loved this idea, but struggle when thinking about how I could establish it in my own community. The “Tragedy of the Commons” is a term associated with how a highly individualistic society can incentivise a person to act on self-interest at the expense of others, which is how society functions in it’s entirety under the existing system of capitalism.

The real “tragedy of the commons” acts as a critique of capital rather than the commons itself. Many ideas flash through my mind, such as creating a collaborative and open to use workshop/ crafts place. Or, creating an online skill swap community, with emphasis on openly learning any skill. Another idea is create free online classes that teach subjects that I am familiar with that others are typically paywalled from learning, held up by a tipping system.

These many variations of a commons would allow me the freedom to teach and create a form of “antischool” or “free skool.” This has been on my mind a lot recently, and I’d love to dedicate time to this aim. I want to do something with purpose, a form of teaching, educational content, or usage of my design skills mixed with my ability to write and think within the design space. I’m glad I got to spend this time this semester fleshing and branching out on all the topics I’ve explored, as it most definitely helped me find a path forward for the rest of my masters.

playing around; thoughts on work

This review is based on the book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown.

I wanted to establish a better understanding of my thoughts on what it means to be “playful” in modern society, and how necessary breaks and relaxation time can be to enrich our personal lives and health. What brought me to this book? While reading CAPS LOCK by Ruben Pater, I found myself wondering how we’ve established that those in society with the mindset in which they would rather spend their life playing, learning, or engaging in critical thought are often looked upon as “lazy,” “childish,” or “immature.”

Since society in the modern age has established that living requires work-life balance, we’ve connected growth with learning to pay taxes, starting a family, and working a 9-5. If I was to step aside and ask you, dear reader, what you might view to be your dream job, what would you answer? Would you want to be a Lawyer, defending the public in court? Maybe a YouTuber, playing games to entertain others? Or rather you might want to use your creative skills to produce art for big companies.

When asked this question now, I still have the same answer as when I was just leaving secondary school. To put it simply, why dream of labor in the first place? I personally don’t fall asleep and excitedly await a dream to do household chores, or file some paperwork at the office. Whether you truly feel you love your job or not, in the end you will still be working. You are trading time(the most invaluable thing in a humans short life) for capital, which you then turn around and spend to maintain your own standard of living.

Can you really say without an ounce of hesitation that you would rather be doing that work instead of relaxing on a beach, playing a game, or acting out any of your hobbies? I think that we can agree that the answer to that is no.

Even a YouTuber, for example, which is considered a rather privileged position for a person to spend their life working in; has days in which they feel that they hate their job. In fact, most YouTubers can often be depressed or go through “Average Life In Numbers”, Clockify mental health issues due to the stress and isolation of being a micro-celebrity online. They are expected to display a cheery, perfect personality to their viewers regardless of their own health. The higher their viewership, the more this pressure can build, often leading to the common sudden hiatuses or retirements.

Don’t get me wrong here, I understand that society in it’s current configuration cannot function without work. Especially in the capitalist economic system, which is built upon underpaid “lower end” workers to maintain the market, someone is needed to stock each shelf, clean each bathroom, or pour each coffee. The problem here is instead how much time, and how little we get back for this time. A week has exactly 168 hours in it, and the average worker in America spends roughly 38 hours at their job in 2023. This may seem easy, “Work-Life balance? yeah I got this, look how much time I have!”

However, if you break that day down into each category, such as eating, chores, sleep, and work, you find that a person may only have 5 or 6 hours a day to themselves. This is assuming a normal 8 hour work day, the average sleep of 7.6 hours, 1 hour for chores, and 1 hour for eating in drinking. This time does not calculate travel to and from work, which for some could take another hour or two from their schedule. With only 5 hours a day to yourself, the numbers look bleak. That’s only roughly 20% of your day, and by extension we can say that including all of these elements, it can take up roughly over 2/3rd of your entire life.

Graphic Designers suffer from often unpaid overtime as well, adding to the total time we may spend working depending on a strict deadline schedule. It’s easy to point out how ridiculous a system such as this is when you see these numbers, and when I look at them. Frankly, I don’t want to spend my short time here creating templates and filing papers for a company that in the end, is meaningless. I think this is where my own thoughts and the book separate, as when you continue reading, you find some older ways of thinking within Stuart Browns thoughts.

For example, he writes “This kid, Harry, was a very smart and pseudo sophisticated couch potato, preoccupied with dark themes in video games, and drawn to ponderous existential literature, but clearly stuck in his juvenility. I had been active on the Outward Bound Board, and knew that the program then operative in the mountains of North Carolina was well-led, rigorous, and safe. So on my advice, Harry’s parents enrolled him.” (p. 120)

Brown then goes on to explain Harrys experience at the camp, stouting how great it was that they had been denied food, had to kill their own chickens to create dinner. He boasts that after the trip, Harry was a confident triathlete and medical student. While I have no problem with children needing to learn self-autonomy and reliance, I think it’s easy to point out the flaws in this line of thinking. First off, I think we need to mention that Outward Bound has countless traumatic survivor stories related the general lack of treatment and abuse suffered at these types of camps. Most staff within these camps are untrained.

Typically there is no license or papers enforcing proper care. This is especially the case for many of the said “troubled teens industry” programs across America. In this case, I would assume by the wording of “His parents enrolled him” means that Harry did not want to participate in this camp. This is of course speculation, but it’s very possible Harry had decided to “straighten his life out” out of the fear and trauma of having to go back. Rather, I can say easily that I believe Harry’s “growth” in becoming an athlete and medical student did not correlate with anything the camp could have “taught” him.

These types of “life camps” are by no means safe, well-led programs. Without federal oversight, these programs operate to simply extract money and take advantage of troubled youth, while manipulating parents into believing this will be good for them. However, something I also take issue with in Browns edorsement of this type of camp is the meritocratic and condescending nature of his arguments for why Harry needed re-educated. He denounces video games, and ponderous existential literature in what I would call an attack on the humanities and arts. In his established viewpoint, it is clear he views athletes and doctors as hierarchically superior to those within the arts.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying the dark themes of the well-written story of the Dark Souls series, or reading the existential literature of the philosopher Osamu Dazai, for example. Some of the most important life lessons I’ve learned in my time come from the media I have consumed, the video games, the literature, the music and more. The artists and musicians are of course just as important as the doctors and athletes in society.

Brown argues that through play, we learn everything important to social animals such as humans. Brown then uses that information to aim his focus at work culture, using the “power of play” as a tool for corporations to utilize in their employees. “play” in his definition is no longer about enjoying rest or relaxation, but about efficacy and productivity. This is clear in some of his last lines in the book; “Play is how we are made, and how we develop and adjust to change. It can foster innovation and lead to multibillion dollar fortunes... as Freud says, life is about love and work.” (p.218)

While there are many insights I can take from Brown, I find that in his support of certain system through his writing, it reveals his true character, and I personally don’t feel that most of those thoughts align with my own way of thinking, centered towards a society without the systems he endorses. As I’ve learned myself over the past few months, I can definitely agree that physical activity and social sports such as climbing invigorate the mind and soul. Yet play can be so much more, it can be life lessons delivered in a amazing show, or problem solving learned from a puzzle filled video game. If you open your mind to what you can learn, you can find that you can acquire many life lessons from just about anything.

Media as art, in that sense, is limitless in possibility.

stuff is messed up; empathy and pedagogy

As we briefly mentioned in the conclusion to Anarchist Pedagogies, I wanted to talk about empathy and pedagogy in the class room setting. With the current state of the world, students are facing an unprecedented amount of pressures coming from the shortcomings and failures of previous generations and societies.

The pressure is ever more monumental now, as students in America deal not only with a world that more often than not fails to recognize and empathize with their ideas and thoughts, shunning them as too young to understand anything;

what’s going on with their bodies,

what’s going on with their governments,

what’s going on with the world,

what’s going on with the environment.

As the times have become more divisive than ever, the students of this generation are left picking up the pieces.

This is more than evident when you look at the current protests and encampments set up by the students at UCLA, Yale, and Columbia University, as well as many other campuses across the world. Where tensions have grown and state violence has entered protests, fascist forces crack down on the ideals our nation previously purveyed such as free speech, right to protest, and right to demonstration. News media twists the narrative to attack the young activists as racist, hateful anarchists. Both counter-protesters and government military police attempt to beat the young and bright futures into submission.

This is not new. What we’re seeing here is not the first time we’ve seen protest, as our country has a long history with organized demonstration. We have witnessed many changes over the course of history, and it’s not much of a stretch to say that throughout those times, the young generation and student movements have historically often found themselves on the side we now view as correct.

This is no different with Gaza.

Palestinians are currently suffering a genocidal apartheid regime by the hands of the Israeli military state, of course through the investment and funding provided by American taxpayers and private institutions. The US geopolitical interests side with Israel and support this genocide due to our relationship with Israel being that of an American puppet. Without Israel, the US believes it would need an Israel within the Middle East, America continues to fund them to keep a diplomatic pressure and presence within the region.

The issues going on with Palestine is essentially the litmus test, it is the fundamental baseline for empathy and understanding, a mandate of humanity. The lens of history points sharply at this moment, in the words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

So in a moment such as this, how and what do you do to teach and prepare the students in this position? How do you accommodate the many different students mental states, personal struggles, and learning styles while simultaneously making forward progress in the classroom?

Mixed with the 2000s era imagery and video editing, the offspring speak to the struggle of the people growing up in modern day America in their song “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, especially coming from the abject poverty and hostile environments on the developing mind. This particularly speaks to me, as this is no different from my hometown and the downfall of the post-industrial Appalachian region, many of the friends I had and grown up with in high school suffered the same fates and circumstances as those within the song by The Offspring:

“When we were young, the future was so bright
The old neighborhood was so alive
And every kid on the whole damn street
Was gonna make it big and not be beat

Now the neighborhood’s cracked and torn
The kids are grown up, but their lives are worn
How can one little street swallow so many lives?

Jamie had a chance, well, she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home ‘cause he’s got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot

Jay committed suicide
Brandon OD’d and died
What the hell is going on?
The cruelest dream, reality

Chances thrown
Nothing’s free
Longing for, used to be
Still it’s hard, hard to see
Fragile lives
Shattered dreams.”

— The Offspring, The Kid’s Aren’t Alright (1998)

For people that come from this region, getting away and pursuing higher education, or escaping the abject poverty and conditions of the area alone is an accomplishment when there are little to no support systems to rehabilitate the crushing effects of those born into families affected by drugs, abuse, and neglect. The cycle consumes the next generation, conditions them in a culture unwilling to change, leaving the area stuck in the past.

When I travel back into this past, I feel as if an outsider looking in, a mixed and complicated layer of feelings falls over me. This is part of my story, which is of course only a drop in the bucket of the many various struggles and conditions experienced across America as a whole. I can’t bring this up in good conscience without recognizing my own privileges even within this region, as I have had more safety nets available to me than most in the area. I cannot even begin to imagine the struggles and increased difficulty introduced when we implement factors such as marginalization and oppression.

All this creates an even more prevalent need for understanding and mutual recognition within the classroom. As the protests rev up across the states, professors find themselves in the middle of a conflict that not only affects their classroom enviroment, but their personal lives as well. Support(or lack of support) for the situation could create a target on your back, be it from the student body of protestors or the administration.

Yet still we see many professors out on the lawns within the encampments, putting their bodies and livelihoods on the line for the sake of their students as well as their cause. On top of these, we’ve seen professors dedicated to continuing the act of learning and education within this struggle, holding open classrooms in the encampment and welcoming even other students to join. Easily it can be understood that to be a professor in this time provides an invaluable learning opportunity to students on what it means to be an activist and how to operate within that environment.

Students are in constant crises.

The mental health of students has never been at an all time low such as now, in fact we’ve seen unprecedented rises in stress, anxiety, and depression within the student base. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Poor Mental Health and How it Impacts Adolescent Well Being, we’ve seen more than 4 in 10 (42%) students that felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29%) experienced poor mental health. This includes more than 1 in 5 (22%) students seriously considering attempting suicide, and 1 in 10(10%) going through with their attempts. (CDC, Youth Risk Surveillance Data Summary, 2011-2021)

Because of this, students are spending signifigantly less time on their studies and instead dealing with a plethora of world problems weighing them down. Is it the responsibility of the classroom facilitator within this environment to foster a relationship built around understanding these mental and and emotional needs, and adjusting accordingly?

I believe this is essential in the modern style of teaching. Approaches such as ungrading provide more breathing room in the classroom, emphasizing personal growth in a pass/ fail system. On top of this, the role of the teacher(in my eyes) is much better suited as a guiding post, aiding in the personal growth of each individual and providing guidance to each according to their individual need in the classroom.

When noticing other approaches to professorship, often I hear that becoming “too close” to your students and not “maintaining boundaries” can lead to a lack of respect and acknowledgement in a class setting. I find myself heavily disagreeing with this, as I view the classroom as a collaboration between the “student” and the “teacher” rather than a strict hierarchy of the “expert” who’s authority within that classroom is absolute.

The problem with this style of education is that not every student within the classroom is capable of learning at the same pace, and some may not even be interested in learning the same style or approach to the topic. How do you engage a student within work they don’t enjoy or want to pursue, when there are other options in the same career field that could be applied in this situation?

Is it not better to engage the classroom as a community, in the pursuit of nurturing and learning together, as well as gaining mutual ground in the understanding of the chosen field in which we all dedicate our education to?

“Any gardener who should attempt to raise healthy, beautiful, and fruitful plants by outraging all those plants’ instinctive wants and searchings, would meet as their reward - sickly plants, ugly plants, sterile plants, dead plants.

The gardener will not do it; they will watch very carefully to see whether the plants like much sunlight, or considerable shade, whether they thrive on much water or get drowned in it... the plant will indicate itself to the gardener when he is doing the right thing...

If the gardener finds the plant revolts against these expirements, the gardener will desist at once, and try something else; if the gardener finds it thrives, the gardener will emphasize the initial treatment so long as it becomes beneficial.

But what the gardener will surely not do, will be to prepare a certain area of the ground all just alike, with equal chances of sun and moisture in every part, and then plant everything together without discrimination - might close together! - saying beforehand,

“If plants don’t want to thrive on this, they ought to want to; and if they are stubborn about it, they must be made to.””

— Voltairine De Cleyre, ibid., p.255

Closing Thoughts

So, when we’ve managed to deconstruct the authority and hierarchy inherent in the current educational system, what are we left with? As we’ve learned to rely on hierarchy and authority, we’ve also created an environment that infantilizes the youth in the school system. We view students as undeveloped and unprepared to tackle the real world problems and complicated topics of theory.

Yet I believe this perspective is misguided, especially when looking at the context of the modern movements. The students in the recent protests, for example, are by any and all means extremely intelligent both in their approach and setup of the encampments. They are building incredibly well engineered barricade and feeding systems, and ensuring a strong message and declaration of the movement carries through the noise in the mass media.

They carefully pick and choose who speaks to reporters, strategically planning their action and level of protest to stay within non-violent means and avoid negative media coverage. (which comes either way in the end, however remaining true to their goals and approach avoids losing the support of the general population.) What I find to be true instead is not a narrative based on a students readiness for complex topics and academic critical thinking based upon their age and experience; but instead one of the structures of the education system actively stunting this thinking in the attempt to push a more centralized and picked-through education.

The lack of autonomy in the modern students and generation is based around an approach that emphasized authorities values and a demand for respect. There is no trust placed in the hands of the student in this case, introducing grading systems and other forms of assignment to provide a “quota” and ensure the student is staying educated.

Ivan Ilych, a pronounced Austrian philosopher, created a pedagogical philosophy known as “Deschooling” or “Unschooling,” which is commonly associated with homeschooling and phasing a child out of the government educational system. The philosophy revolves around increased levels of trust and emotional investment in each individual student, allowing them to form their own self-autonomy. The relationship and hierarchy has always been seen as authoritarian, but through analysis and application of anarchist pedagogy as well as Deschooling philosophy, might it be possible to foster a more communicative relationship with the students we encounter within our careers, leaving a caring mark on them like we would on our own children?

Matthew Hern in a 1998 published book “Deschooling Our Lives” says this about the process of education;

“...(deschooling) is about relationships, and is the antithesis of professionalism. Genuine relationships are exactly what teachers are looking to avoid. It is what they call “unprofessional.” But if adults are willing to take the time to get to know the kids they are around really well, to spend large amounts of time with their children, to listen carefully to the needs and wants, and to understand what they are capable of, then trust can’t be far behind.”

— Matt Hern, Deschooling Our Lives, 1998

In cases such as the anarchist free school Paideia in Spain, this leads to self-governing and autonomous children aged from 5 to 16 capable of making choices for themselves.

The children within the school clean, create the food menus, order and cook the meals every day, participate in workshops of educational topics that are voted on in “asambleas” (assemblies called by the students), and when they leave and enter the government education system (since the school is not recognized as a real education, the students must leave at 16 or 17 and spend the last year in public school, taking a test to prove profeciency) they often score well over average within the schooling system.

This is of course, with little to absolutely no “adult” intervention, instead the teachers in this case help guide students who are struggling within the system and prepare workshop plans. This isn’t to say that there will never be a bump in the road when adapting to and approaching this alternative system of education, let alone the discussion on how we even advocate for the transition to this system.

Where are the limits of what I can do while working in the state education system on the university level?

What actions can I take to begin fostering this environment with my would be future students?

These are questions I look forward to searching for the answers for as I dive more into my own pedagogical process.

That being said, I truly believe that the implementation of strategies can lead to a better and brighter future, where students actively participate in academia and are taken seriously. Alternatives to the educational system seem to be rising in popularity as students become more conscientious of the worlds issues and the struggles of the modern working class within a government such as America.

Once we realize just how badly stuff is messed up, we can begin to tackle the problems and create a better world. For now, the importance is making sure that todays students can make it to that world in one piece; that they are not crushed educationally, mentally, and physically along the way.

anarchist pedagogies

This is a review of the book Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education edited by Robert H. Haworth.

I think Anarchist Pedagogies created a revolution within my head.

Wait, let me explain. Essentially, I’ve been locked inside my own head. As I’ve grappled with what it means to be a masters candidate in design, I’ve found myself paralyzed when it came to making work for myself.

How do others perceive my work?

Asking questions such as “Is this worthy of a masters program?”

“What would David want me to do with this idea?”

“How should I make this from an academic perspective?”

These questions, as with the many others swirling within a spiral of how to be an “Ideal Student,” stunted my active growth and demonstrated my lack of autonomy within the creative space. I have grown dependent on the institutionalized mechanisms of education that have removed my ability to work for myself, waiting to be told what to do next or where to go.

It is this book that helped me to finally understand and unlock this mindset, and allowed me to create this packet and work for myself. Thus, as it is so fitting with the style of this packet and my new perspective, I will talk first about my thoughts on pedagogy, anarchy, the education system, and where I belong within the mechanisms controlling our lives.

The schooling system, especially within the United States of America, has systematically used its authority and power to create and foster not an education of critical thinking. Instead, the education is found most commonly as a tool at the disposal of the government, intended not to enrich an individual, but force them into complicity in their system. Placed in evenly spaced seats in a small room, students are forced to fit a mold made for everyone, with no regard for their individual learning abilities or preferences.

Teachers enforce rules such as raising your hand to use the bathroom, and not leaving your seat for any reason during class time. The right to speak is granted only by the authority, you may not chat with a classmate or even discuss a relevant class topic without permission. The curriculum is set by the state, ensuring students are taught a perspective that aligns with the thinking of their ruling classes.

The reasoning for this is quite clear; The American public is educated in this way to create a subservient and docile working class. Silent and unquestioning, the average student is taught from day one that the system in which they live and operate is the only true and correct way of being. Any other form of government or societal rule is below the American people, instilling the idea of American Exceptionalism, Individualism, and Nationalism.

The book Anarchist Pedagogies shares multiple essays from critical thinkers in the anarchist community attempting to introduce and provide insight onto the shortcomings of this system of education, as well as demonstrate alternatives educational models that could foster a more free and whole education while emphasizing the role of the educator and the student. However, something you may be wondering is how that really has anything to do with something as radical as “creating a revolution in my head.” To illustrate this, let’s unpack various quotes and ideas presented in the book that have helped me incredibly escape my creative rut.

If you find it hard to believe my claims on the intention of the schooling system to be used as a system of obedience, maybe it would help to see for yourself the words directly from Benjamin Rush. As a signer of the declaration of independence in the founding of our country, and considered the father of American Psychiatry, he would say this in his 1786 document “Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic.” It reads as follows;

“In order more effectually to secure to our youth the advantages of a religious education, it is necessary to impose upon them the doctrines and discipline of a particular church.

Man is naturally an ungovernable animal, and observations on particular societies and countries will teach us that when we add the restraints of ecclesiastical to those of domestic and civil government, we produce in him
the highest degrees of order and virtue...

Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it...

In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible. The government of schools like the government of private families should be arbitrary, that it may not be severe. By this mode of education, we prepare our youth for the subordination of laws and thereby qualify them for becoming good citizens of the republic.

I am satisfied that the most useful citizens have been formed from those youth who have never known or felt their own wills till they were one and twenty years of age, and I have often thought that society owes a great deal of its order and happiness to the deficiencies of parental government being supplied by those habits of obedience and subordination which are contracted at schools...

From the observations that have been made it is plain that I consider it as possible to convert men into republican machines. This must be done if we expect them to perform their parts properly in the great machine of the government of the state. That republic is sophisticated with monarchy or aristocracy that does not revolve upon the wills of the people, and these must be fitted to each other by means of education before they can be made to produce regularity and unison in government...”

— Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic. (1786)

Although spoken 200 years ago, these fundamental ideas have never left the school systems and government. The advent of technology and the industrial revolution has even more so created a necessity of this system, as the internet allows more freedom to educate oneself and realized the problems hidden within the core of the education system.

Where does this everything connect?

Coming to the realization that this is the system in which I was raised gave me a whole bunch of questions in need of answering. Over time I found many answers to my existential crisis on my own education within the book, answers which brought me to recontextualizing the entire idea of my undergraduate education. In my undergrad, we were taught the highly capitalistic and economic version of what it means to fulfill the role of the graphic designer.

Classes focused on technical skills and client relationships, projects based themselves around corporate identity and visual communication. This is not to say that these are not important topics to learn, as after all, we still live inside a highly capitalistic system of economy and must find a way to commodify our skills and provides services deemed of monetary value. However as I reflect back on my education, I wonder what, if any, time I had to dedicate to myself or my own mission as an artist.

Personal “styles” meant nothing in the broad scheme, as corporations would look for flexible designer able to replicate what brand or style they already operated within as a conglomerate. What I felt was all to absent at the classroom setting was discussion on the theory and concept behind our ideas. Why did we spend so much time enforcing archaic design rules established and canonized by old white men that claimed that their form of design is “objectified” or “correct”?

Why did we not discuss the greater reasoning behind a decision, the reason behind our choices on a broader level. How do we feel about a specific idea or topic, and how does that affect our design practice? Often we see students falling within the camp of making whatever is “trendy” within the design space, or claims of a love for minimalism and clean aesthetics paired with overconsumption of online design through sites like Pinterest create a homogenous class design style. 20 portfolios walk out of the classroom with the same projects, same style, essentially the same work.

Breaking away from this idea can lead to punishment for experimentation, as what is not considered “good” design can be immediately rejected, students dogpile on the outcast of the class or the student who experimented receives a lower grade for their work(which in itself is a strong argument for the philosophy of ungrading). This creates a tension within the community of the classroom where students find themselves requiring to submit to “authority.” In the words of Joel Spring, a professor and activist writer;

“By attempting to teach automobile driving, sex education, dressing, adjustment to personality problems and a host of related topics, the school also teaches that there is an expert and correct way of doing all of these things and that one should depend on the expertise of others. Students in the school ask for freedom and what they receive is the lesson that freedom is only conferred by authorities and must be used “expertly.” This dependency creates a form of alienation which destroys peoples ability to act. Activity no longer belongs to the individual, but the the expert and the institution.”

— (Spring, 1998, pp. 26-27)

This moment, upon reading this exact quote, is when the entirety of my realization had set in.

Throughout my time and experience in education, I had constantly been taught that I must conform and fit within the acknowledgement of authority, be that the literal definition of authority in the form of a hierarchy between student and teacher, or a metaphorical, hidden authority that requires you to create art for the sake of others rather than yourself.

Students are removed of free will and autonomy through this process, nothing is created without the intention of proving worth or receiving validation from some sort of authoritarian figure. The teacher in this situation is not a gentle guide or helping hand to assist the process of learning, but instead the floor manager of a factory, ensuring that quotas are met and the workers(students) are kept in line.

That is exactly where I found myself caught up, as I transitioned to the world of VCFA, a school very similar in pedagogical process to the free schools I’ve been reading about, I had to venture outside of this authoritarian comfort zone in which I had not been required to think for myself.

My decisions were guided not by a pursuit of personal gain and enlightenment, but on whether or not it would be good to include in a packet, and whether my advisor (the authority) would view me as worthy and having met my quota. This line of thinking lead to personal stunted growth and a lack of understanding of how to create beyond the boundary lines. Every project and idea must be “valid” and “worthy”, and the projects must be large and perfectly researched and executed.

Enlightenment and the classroom.
(or, “Where the #$*! do we go from here?”)

Of course, no problem can be solved without the creation of another problem. In the tumultuous time we live in, and with the recent protests and encampments happening across the world at university campuses, we see a rise in dissent and confliction with the narrative told by the US governments.

However, even with the flak the university system is taking for it’s support of openly genocidal regimes and actively being fought against on that front, I still wonder how much ground we can clear in the fight for a more free and desirable educational system at a lesser cost. As someone who will be throwing myself into the fire of teaching at a University eventually, I worry that my research and line of thinking, as well as the pedagogy I am developing, will be seen as dangerous to the overall mission of the public schooling system of America.

Alternatively, I wonder what breakthroughs can be made to implement more of anarchistic and free schooling levels of thinking into a classroom as someone acting within the machine we are fighting against. The definition of Anarchism and the school of thought is so misunderstood within culture and media, viewed as violent and rowdy embodiments of teenage angst and punk ethos. I myself used to believe that as I leaned more towards other schools of thought in my lack of understanding.

What I’ve encountered instead is a truly welcoming community of critical thinkers dedicated to providing freedom and liberation from all forms of oppression. Communities of interesting and caring people who want desperately to make change in the world and recognize the system of oppression and suffering inherent within the capitalist structure of living.

My personal pedagogy as such grows and sides towards these lines of thought as I learn and flesh out what it means to teach in the modern age. Empathy and compassion, as well as understanding and mutualism are essential within the classroom to create an environment where every person is capable of growth and learning.

The act of teaching is also an act of learning, as every new student will present a new challenge or personality you will encounter, but what comes of developing a standoff-ish persona that pushes the students away? Mutual respect in the classroom must go both ways, as the role of the teacher will never stop continuing to be the role of the student as well.

mental (interlude)

📼 August 2017,

I was attending a small trade school for computer sciences, specifically programming and networking. The school was in the downtown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My first time being on my own, the size and plethora of things to do in the city mesmerizing to my young self, having only ever lived in small towns in the countryside.

Things weren’t so great however, the trade school was not an exemplary form of education, and reflected more of American high school education than that of College level. The classes were short, there were many different classes per day, the homework was piled on. The school enforced a business dress code for “professionalism”, there was only one teacher for each subject. The classroom was small, dry, and always way too hot for the suits we were required to wear. There was no food or cafeteria at the school, so we had to figure out food ourselves somehow, and figure out how to get the money to eat in the first place.

The dorms were small, white rooms with no windows. The bathrooms were shared across the whole floor and rarely seemed to be cleaned well, and each room had a small kitchenette with a sink, fridge and stove. The winter months were harsh in the city, from the downtown dorms to the school the walk took roughly 20 minutes to and back. This included going over one of the rivers and walking over a bridge, where the cold winds traveled across the frozen river in negative degree windchill.

Besides that, it was a time filled with memories. I met some of my closest friends I still have today. Messing around as a bunch of college dorm boys made the whole experience more stomach-able, we played tons of games together, explored the city together, and even all got hired at the same small Noodle Restaurant and practically ran the place together.

The 20 minutes walks gave tons of time for music, which helped me gain my love for experimentation and new types of songs, genres, and artists. One of the major albums I listened to at that time was Chloe Burbank Vol. 1 (An album that doesn’t actually exist, as the songs have been buried by the artist as a scrapped debut album and only a few have surfaced since he became famous. In my opinion, it still remains his best work to today. The song above is related, as it’s one of the only songs to make it to official release)

When I listen to this album, I feel an overwhelming nostalgia hit me. I feel the bite of the cold, the sound of the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, I can remember the route I took everyday now, the faces I’d see, the album to me hits a perfect melancholy note of the mixture of the hard time I was going through and the memories I cherish from that time. A interesting mix and contrast of emotions.

After roughly a year of being at Bradford School, we were called into a general assembly and told that the school was shutting down due to enrollment. Essentially, it was an exit scam, the trade school was never really considered an accredited institution in the first place, it relied on stealing money from young people who were unaware while providing minimum education and amenities. They gave us the option to continue as the last class at the school, but the head teachers had already left to new opportunities and we were stuck with temporary faculty that didn’t even know our subject.

Considering where I was, I consider this one of the lowest points in my life. I was heavily depressed, hated programming and school, my attendance and grades dropped, and I felt trapped. My parents didn’t support me leaving, I had almost no support or people on my side, but I did it anyway. I went home, and worked at a gas station for a year. Life wasn’t getting any better, and I needed to make a change. I searched around for ideas, I played with ideas such as moving to Japan and teaching English, becoming a flight attendant, maybe YouTube? I was desperate for something, and then I landed on going back to school. I was very hesitant, of course, due to my previous experience. Then my life changed forever when I started at Edinboro in the Graphic Design Program.

---

Throughout the last packet, I think I expressed a tone of doubt and feeling of unsatisfaction in what I was doing. Truth be told, I think that most of those factors came from outside influences that were personally affecting me. There's been a fair bit of struggle with my moms health, my own personal health, coming to terms with the worlds problems, and more to name just a few of the many stresses life puts us through. I think because of that I had a heightened sense of anxiety and stress last month, leading to a low self-esteem that what I was working on was worth it in the end.

I’m calling this packet Interlude, because for me it has been a sort of mental reset, and a moment of breath and calm post-vacation where I feel more stable and ready to take things on. Don’t get me wrong, everything is still on fire on the outside, but at least I feel like I’ve got a little bit more control. I guess I’m gonna dedicate this writing to small stories or details about my life recently or in the past, just to get it all out there and hopefully feel a little better.

🎨 Last year before I started here at VCFA I was actually in the hospital for a week due to my gallbladder developing stones which then blocked my liver and pancreas from being able to function. The major attack that almost killed me happened to come the day that I was moving into my new apartment, and I rushed to the hospital. I spent 5 days without being able to eat or even drink water, and it led to a quick surgery getting my gall bladder out.

Since then, it’s been hard to eat the food here. America has a very high affinity to dyes, oils, preservatives, and pesticides that pump out the most produce possible at the cheapest quota available. Unfortunately this sacrifices the quality and healthiness of the food, and most of these chemicals (which are illegal in almost any country with a decent food and drug administration), actively cause me to feel sick since having my surgery.

Because of this It’s been stressful to even eat here, I barely find myself having the time to cook every meal from scratch no matter how much I love to cook, but no matter where we can go to get food I can basically guarantee I’ll be paying for it later. When we went to Denmark, to my surprise, I didn’t have a single attack no matter what I ate. We went to many restaurants in our time there, ate greasy Italian food, steaks, ice cream, fried desserts, and yet I never found myself needing to take medicine once when there.

Is it really such a reality that what we put in the food in America is that bad? How can I even begin to escape that reality, besides moving away to a place like Denmark? The idea that things can get better for us is comforting, however it has both me and my significant other scrambling to figure out how exactly we can escape from here, and how long it will take. The yearn for a better life, where people are treated like fellow humans and taken care of, where the culture is connected and community centric, where we treat the environment with the respect it deserves, where our kids can be taken care of both educationally and physically, and where the food both tastes better and is better for you. From our perspective, America feels like a hell, a prison keeping us from living our best possible lives. Where stress is a constant, and every persons decline around you is the product of a failing system on the brink of collapsing entirely.

So needless to say, we absolutely loved our trip to Denmark, even if it did make us feel desperate for some positive change in our home lives.

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I think often about the song Mental by Denzel Curry. The entire album Melt My Eyez See Your Future acts often as a simple and quick mental reset for me, when I feel anxious about something, music can often help me calm and sort through it easier. The soft, instrumental Jazz and Soul of the tracks bring about calmness, and then the harsh hip-hop lyrics chime in with reality, illustrating the details and problems with the world while maintaining a understanding and composure towards those issues.

The album, for Denzel, was a way of processing traumas and facing inner demons through his work. The album was produced and written during the Covid-19 Pandemic, where many people lost their lives to sickness, as well as riots broke out across the country for the Black Lives Matter movement. I can really feel the connection to self reflection and the want to better yourself. When talking about his process of making the album, he talks about the constant comparing yourself to others and what others in the industry are doing, and how he tried to make the album disconnected from that and his own thing, a raw vulnerable piece of his self translated into music. I feel there’s a lot to take away from that, I’m just not quite there yet.

The idea of “imposter syndrome” is really no stranger to graphic designers, I don’t think I’ve ever met a student in undergrad who wasn’t in some way feeling that pressure. To top this off, we then compare ourselves to our peers around us, he’s better at logos, she’s really good at illustration, and it takes a mental tool on our self esteem and ability to create at our 100%. Mentality and Ego can be large factors in ability, if a person doesn’t believe that they are capable of something, they won’t be able to do it. You have to push past those mental roadblocks and challenge yourself to go beyond both your own expectations and others.

For me, my struggle has always been traditional art. I learn mediums such as drawing, painting, pottery, etc. at a much slower rate that digital forms of art, and because of that I always feel the pressure that what I’m doing is a waste and I’m never truly happy with what I’m making. I’ve built up strict walls and defenses as safeguards to protect myself from damaging my own ego, and because of that I am actively hindering and limiting my own artistic freedom. It’s so easy to stay within your “safe space” and not want to venture out. Nobody likes to be in pain, even if pain is a learning experience.

Because my ability in traditional art has always been lesser than others, I find myself comparing myself to those who make similar work very negatively. The lack of ability to do proper thumbnails or sketches, or to create detailed illustrative guides or concepts, makes me feel imposter syndrome the same way. The walls I build up made me attach myself only to digital means of making, where I was proficient and able to learn fast and make good work using type, shapes, motion, or anything outside of sketching. Molding a square into a chair in blender is much easier than sawing and nailing together some planks of wood. I think I need to address this problem and face this inner demon in my time at VCFA.

🧗 Something that I’ve decided to pick up, both for my mental and physical health, is Climbing at our local bouldering gym.

Both my girlfriend and I have realized that due to our general lack of activeness and our sedentary lifestyles, that we’ve become pretty out of shape. As people who want to travel a lot, eventually hiking and walking all around the world, we know that we can’t really afford to let ourselves stay unhealthy.

I wanted something that could be a considerable full body workout while simultaneously being engaging and fun, for me, running on a treadmill or lifting weights is just too boring and feels more like a waste of time no matter how good it is for you.

On top of this, finding a physical activity to dedicate time to is great for my mental health, as it lets me go work things out and think for a little. The benefits of having a physical hobby or discipline is clear, but spending some more time together, getting out of the house and away from my office, and using our graphic designer style personalities to problem solve the boulders in the gym should prove to be great for both of us.

We have classes once a week now, and after the first one I have sore muscles that I didn’t even know existed, but I really enjoyed it a lot and actually found out a lot of fellow Alumnx climb there too. (Graphic Designers apparently like climbing a lot? I guess it makes sense due to the problem solving nature, but it still surprised me!)

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Considering I’ve been sharing a lot of songs from my past or that mean a lot to me, here’s a song that represents perfectly my days at my old trade school. “why we never host the pregame” has always been a representation of that feeling of nostalgic times with friends in the city, young teenagers being dumb and immature and living together in a small space. I’ve grown a lot since then, and I’ve changed completely from who I was. Back then we didn’t record or document much of our lives together though.

Overall, moving forward I feel a lot better about what I’m going into. I want to be more experimental, more weird, and more fun in what I’m doing. I want to enjoy my work but still find it meaningful and important, and most importantly I want clear the mental walls I’ve built up in my head.

Having a writing session to sit down and sort through all this in my head has helped out a lot, as sometimes it’s hard to collect my thoughts and ideas with my ADHD. I always have a hundred thoughts, ideas, notes, and etc. knocking around in my head at a time, so when I talk in meetings with others I can sometimes get sidetracked easily, or completely misrepresent what I’m thinking.

🎵 But you’re the only thing I wanna get better for for real So I’ll read another book that tells me exactly how to feel I’ll keep writing my goals down so I have something to read This list of unchecked boxes is my work of fantasy I’ll give myself a name unrecognizable on the shelf So I can go and pass the blame to someone other than myself And if you find it I hope that you read it through and through And I hope that it’s as pretty as you

This was my mental spew, a glimpse into who I am, and where I’m at. Hopefully this didn’t bore or feel like I was trying to give out an autobiography, or maybe it wasn’t even enough. I just am glad to sort it though, and now I’m ready to reset back and get back to work.

metamodernity

🎵 Next to Hudson Yards, it's crowded on the weekdays From April to May Parse apart a troubled heart from an e-train And sing about it in LA

With clouds in the rearview You start humming along to the first verse Of your favorite song that you quote each day With the words all wrong

So call me when the world looks bleak I love you, but it’s hard to believe With every day, we'll start to see The rest is metamodernity

With agrestic charm, it's humid in the Midwest From June to July All beneath a pinkish sky from the wildfires Which mantle the horizon line

From the outset It’s been hard to tell why we feel this down When it all bodes well You might also like

So call me when the world looks bleak I love you, but it's hard to believe With every day, we'll start to see The rest is metamodernity

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Metamodernism is what lies after Post-Modernism.

Although, that’s weird to hear, and also weird to write. It’s hard to think about Post-Modernism being over, especially considering it’s taught as the canon of current design.

Isn’t that exactly the problem though? Post-Modernism was an answer to Modernism, ironic, satirical, cynical, and real. We saw the rise of modernity get picked apart, we challenged white narratives and canons established by centuries of colonization, we saw styles such as abstraction and grunge take complete hold over an entire generation of artists and designers. People were no longer conforming to the little white checkboxes society had placed them within.

“Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead…”

— Joyce Messier, Disco Elysium (2019)

Post-Modernism has essentially become just as subservient to the majority narrative that any previous narrative before it has. The style is no longer breakout, the ideas no longer resistance by nature. Abstraction and deconstruction are taught in the classroom just as minimalism and grid-systems are. Major companies like Nike appropriate the postmodern style, consumer television shows such as The Simpsons and South Park in America for example use postmodern humour. The music of many modern artists in the 90s by example critiqued our way of living with various messages and phrases. Basically, the ideas and concepts of postmodern thought are ingrained in everyday life whether we acknowledge them or not.

The shift to Metamodernism happened when we moved from the ironic and cynical, to still acknowledging those ironies while simultaneously looking for a moment of genuineness or honesty. All movements be it Postmodernism or Metamodernism, it is a structure of feeling. Both tie into a general cultural relationship with all things in society, and they could even be considered their own philosophies.

Postmodern, defined by Frederik Jameson in “POSTMODERNISM: The Cultural Logic of Late Stage Capitalism” is the sensibility of the end times, the end of history, the end of ideology, the end of society, the end of everything. On the contrary, Metamodernism is the sensibility of post-irony, new forms of sincerity, and informed Naiveté.

“To give an analogy, if modernism was the absolute belief in the building of Babel, and postmodernism was the realisation that it cannot be built, metamodernism can be thought of as the engagement in building it with the knowledge that it is a flawed or unachievable task.”

— The Role of the (Graphic) Designer, Metamodernism.com

Metamodernist realize the futility of a battle against a metaphorical god, the Sisyphusian task of attempting to fight against a system so powerful and large (which also ties into the Metamodernists direct relation to leftist thought and theory), and still chooses the attempt to create a better solution knowing that there may never be a fruit that bears out of the labor done.

The term “Meta” coincides the it’s Greek origin, meaning “Between”, “After”, or “Beyond.” Thus, Metamodernism oscillates between between modernist and postmodernist, and beyond to something entirely different. It doesn’t take allegiance with either side, and properly points out the pros in each as well as the cons. It is a return to the elegant big narratives established by modernism, but with the added irony and sentiment of the postmodern. Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker stated in their 2010 article:

“Ontologically, metamodernism oscillates between the modern and postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between the hope and melancholy, between naivete and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.

Each time the metamodern enthusiasm swings towards fanaticism, gravity pulls it back towards irony; the moment its iron sways towards apathy, gravity pulls it back to enthusiasm.”

— Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, 2010

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But why is Postmodernism over? Well it’s simple, can we describe the rising and bubbling over of internet culture, memes, Tik-Tok, and many more examples as postmodernist? If the answer to that is no, then what can we describe them as?

The application of metamodern thought does not only apply to internet culture, however, as we see a shift in work that exists in culture yet struggles to identify with a single movement. Notable examples could include Wes Andersons and Spike Lees films, Bo Burnhams music and documentary “Inside”, and music such as my often linked band Vansire. I would strongly argue that our Alumnx Heather Snyder Quinn applies heavily towards this as well. These artists were using postmodern mediums and means, but not exactly reaching postmodern ends. Not everything was a cynical effort to expose and disillude, but often aimed towards creating a sincerity or connection with the topic.

We define this in layers, starting at layer 1 and moving through layers as we continue to get closer to the self. If Layer 1 is a published piece of art, then Layer 2 reflects that, looking upon it in a modernist framework of surface level meanings and intention. Layer 3 then confronts the other Layers with cynicism and nihilistically attacks the reason or existence of the art, such as how postmoderism would approach it. When we arrive at Layer 4, we deconstruct the postmodern thought, where we become more vulnerable and earnest about the work and why we attacked it. Layer 4 and beyond would become the Metamodern, what we see as deconstruction of deconstruction as a means to a reconstructive end.

I think it’s important to note that the point in the modern age we live in is unpredictable and always changing. To that point maybe metamodernity is about the adaptation and working around the new challenges brought on upon by post-capitalist society. The metamodern framework is simply a way of interpreting this new sensibility we see in art and design, and is not considered a movement in the sense of what we would call postmodernism. As the modern age continues, we will keep trying to interpret and understand it and find value in our new discoveries.

notes on utopia

What is Utopia?

Is it a pleasant feeling of a perfect social lounge such as depicted in Utopia by Jaeden Camstra feat. Candid, a pleasant swelling and almost nostalgic feeling?

A world with no problems?

A world where society has figured it out, that nobody is sad, angry, or guilty?

Would that world be possible?

What would it look like?

The following writings are not a cohesive point, or even a solution to a problem. It is a collection of various thoughts and notes on the broader topic of utopia, political alignment, empathy, and humanity as a whole. Some my leeway into the next, some may build upon a previous, and some my take a completely different position than the previous. In my mind, I have gone through a lot of change over the years I have started academia that has lead to both personal and social growth, especially since starting my MFA. I have ideas and contradictions swirling within that feel daunting to address, as this fundamental shift in myself is something I do not take lightly. Through this, you might feel as if you(the reader) have a chance to step into my head, and you might wholeheartedly disagree with my thoughts, or maybe even find new things to consider for your self.

What is wrong with Utopia?

Utopia can not really exist, as to pursue a utopia would be similar to pursuing perfection, perfection which is also unattainable as it exists only as a construct and not as something tangible that can be attained. We live in a time when our planet is dying, the after-effects of industrialization and modernity have created societies and functions that harm us, harm our families, harm our already short lifespan, harm our environment, harm our ecosystems.

Society through the lens of fiction and reality alike have viewed utopianism as a dark horse, something that only is pursued by the naïve and short-sighted. Society now is so avid on defending systems of belief we exist under currently that they often do not take the time to consider healthier alternatives, or motions of change. This can often be out of a lack of education, or, in the case of America for example, a sense of blissful ignorance and complacency.

“Good Enough” is not good enough. When did we choose to forget as a society about the history of our own people? When did we become complacent in viewing the current system as the only tangible form of society when this system itself is only roughly 200 years old?

Utopia can be strived for.

To strive for utopia is human nature, the bettering of ourselves, our planet, our community, our lives. Our species is not special, we are animals, we are part of the ecosystem. We have garnished this toxic ideation that we have been chosen by evolution to be the masters of the planet through our gift of consciousness, intelligence, and opposable thumbs. We are not masters, we were not born to rule, we were born to co-exist with the planet and it’s diverse creatures.

Utopia will not be a perfect society. There is no perfect society. Utopia will not happen tomorrow if we take action today. There will be struggle, there will be issue, people will disagree on the many topics and ways of handling any given situation.

Human beings are not a parasite.

Humans, contrary to the legalist point of view, are not born evil. The idea of human nature being intrinsically related to violence, war, and aggression has been suggested by many philosophers Western and Non-Western alike, with a focus on an individualist point of view that humans are always centered at the idea of self-service and gain. I believe this is not true, humans are social based animals made to survive and nurture their selves within community.

It is human nature to want to help and care for those who are not capable of self care, dating back to hunter-gatherers acting upon this rational form of compassion. It is because of hierarchical and social systems imprinting on us that we believe that we are selfish, or that an ungoverned populous would cause infighting and no regards for others.

The system, such as Americas for example, creates social reasons for rules in the society such as owning and purchasing money, food, housing, or any other basic necessity. Thus, the act of stealing is also created by society, most commonly as a condition of the system itself. Those who do not have money, and thus do not have food, must take what is necessary for them to survive.

It is true that fear and desperation are mechanics within our nature for survival, yet every person experiences this fear differently. One might be afraid of heights while the other afraid of water, typically connected to a lived or learned experience that causes them to be wary or scared. The government grapples onto and effectively manipulates the fear and contrasting comfort of safety to create an environment of control, to which questioning their policy causes a “necessary reaction” from appropriate government forces.

And still the most fear is felt within the government itself, fear of losing control, fear of an educated populous, and fear of losing the power they grasp onto so desperately. Power universally and wholly corrupts, that is of no question. Therefore, it is much easier to convince a population that dependency is a must, to reinforce a narrative that without the state, society would fall to death, ruin, theft, and poverty.

There is no future under capitalism.

Capitalism is unsustainable. It it a system defined by self-service, individualism, and crippling meritocracy. The very definition of a free market capitalist economy is greed and profit, there can be no ecologically sustainable world and biodiverse community as long as we operate a system in which a select few remain in power.

Although many believe that capitalism has put in motion modernity and improved the entirety of our everyday lives, it has brought about a ruin so severe on a social and ecological basis that we have done more damage to the planet in 300 years than in the entire time humans have roamed the Earth. Globalization, Free Market Enterprise, Land Ownership, Colonialism, the need for energy, and many more systems have caused the earth to slowly rot from it’s core, all for the sake of individual liberties.

The word “growth” is commonly associated with nothing but positives. It is considered often counter-intuitive to be against the concept of growth. Yet, the practice of “Degrowth” provides grounds for a much better world. The average human simply uses too much. Too much meat. Too much power. Too much fuel. Too much.

Sacrifice and The Individual.

When speaking on the idea of Degrowth, the initial response is typically associated with “but your typing this on a computer right now, yet you don’t believe in computers?” in a snarky, condescending tone as if they’ve figured everything out and pointed out my hypocritical thought process and ways. That is true, I am using power right now, I take longer showers than I really need to (hot ones, too), and I am going to most likely have some form of meat for dinner tonight like most nights. I’m not, in any way, proposing that these luxuries in life should be phased out and we should go back to living in caves, bathing in rivers, and hunting for our own sustenance.

Degrowth is not cutting off cold turkey. It is a reduction of privilege's and a focus on necessities, for society now relies entirely on a cycle of viscous consumerism backed by advertisement of the unnecessary and over-reliance on mass production. The individual, especially in western society, lacks the understanding of how much selfishness we display in these actions.

Our world can get better.

It is not too late. We can repair, mend, or reverse the affects of what we’ve done. It may take more than a lifetime to do so, but action now could significantly improve our species and the planets future. What we need is to understand that we must cut, as soon as feasible, carbon and oil based productions. We need to lean in on carbon neutral means, even if they are not perfect. The understanding that they will produce less overall power comes with the acknowledgments of the cutbacks in our personal energy use, may it be possible to see quotas on power usage in the future, while still allowing leisure and play, could we reduce the worlds unsatiable need for energy?

We need the library.

Why must I own everything?

Why should I spend hundreds or thousands to personally own a tool or tools, for example, that I may only use on occasion, perhaps even every few years if they are only for a specific need?

Why must I own a truck to transport furniture, when I might only need it to pick up that piece from a depot?

Why should I have to buy a crib for my newborn, only to (more than likely) throw that crib out and get a bed once my child becomes a toddler?

The system of libraries are as genius as they are historically timeless. We have created communal spaces of knowledge that allows those without ability to collect a large number of books a space to borrow, learn, read, and return thousands of different pieces of literature. The ability this grants to educate someone who is less privileged than another does not even need be mentioned. To add to this, the library encourages positive treatment of our possessions, collectively as a people, we take care to not damage or hurt the books, so that the next person may enjoy it just as much.

Why not create more common areas like this for the items in life that are not needed permanently? We have seen rise to community workshops, group clay fires, and sometimes toolshares within a library, but why not take this to another higher level? Who says that one cannot just go get a garden trowel when we need it, and return it when we’re done. Maybe even having the trowel for a longer period of time with no penalty or fault given?

What would be a possible conflict with this line of thinking? Do we worry that people will damage or steal? Do we get attached a trowel, if so, should we entertain that attachment?

We need speculative fiction.

I think, to this end, speculative fictions such as literature, design fictions, or more are fantastic tools to educate a user on the potentiality of the future. Having a multitude of options is great for the enrichment and enlightenment of our development. Whether they be utopian or dystopian in nature, we can agree that each form of fiction shows the reader/viewer of a new world that can be explored or found within an idea.

It acts as a medium, both for warning signs and for optimism. Through this, we are also capable of making engagement with these difficult topics fun and enjoyable. We can be silly, overly sarcastic, extremely grim, or even rigid and authoritative to demonstrate a point. We can express our thoughts and convince someone to view the world from our side with visuals and worlds that seem so unreal and dreamlike yet like they could happen at any point in the future.

Wrapping things up.

I think with these thoughts all around I can say that I choose to believe in the concept of Utopia. Why not? It’s better than sitting around hopeless and sad watching the world crumble. As I said in my very first note, I don’t believe a full utopia is possible. Alternatively, I do believe that it is admirable and perfectly fine to pursue an idea of utopia. I also think that researching and creating dystopian views is just as valid, as those messages often carry with then a weight or responsibility of informing the reader/viewer that there is something innately wrong.

Why not try to make something better with what we have?

the checkpoint at the end of the internet

In the greater void, an expansive layer of content veiled invisibly over our heads known as “The Internet”, one might in their travels stumble across The Checkpoint.

The internet is so massive, it would be fundamentally impossible to explore the entirety of it within the short span of our own human lives. One can easily assume then, that there is troves upon troves of lost media, dusty and untouched, layers of sediment atop content not seen since the early 2000s or maybe even before.

In the modern age, we tend to attempt to archive everything that is tangibly possible to archive. However, it is nearly impossible to imagine that we have truly grabbed every single thing. For example a video could have been uploaded by a creator who met an untimely end, only for the video to be deleted years later due to inactivity or changes in rules. Even with 200,000 views or many more, what guarantees that somebody pressed the download button before it was gone?

Many have taken up the mantle of “internet Archaeologists” and “Internet Historians”, committing serious amount of time exploring the vast open spaces of old MMOs such as Second Life (year), scouring for lost media of television era shows and movies, or digging through old forums, now tombs of old conversations held of people who have passed or moved on from that stage in their life.

Another day with some extra free time, you decided to open YouTube and browse what's on offer, letting the attention economy guide you. Many videos suggested are boring, many you've seen before, some new and from smaller channels, some educational. One, however, stands out. A black sheep, something is odd about it existing here, the title reads as follows:

とげとげクタルめいろすスーパードンケーキング2”

An odd insert of Japanese hiragana and katakana in your otherwise totally English speaking, non-Japanese YouTube pierces the video array like a dead pixel on a screen. The thumbnail a low-quality image of a pattern of vines over a blue and white sky. Something about this video evokes an almost ephemeral and dreamlike vibe, before even clicking in. Of course, now that you are so intrigued, you do decide to pursue further. What about this video is so attractive to you, apart from the fact that it clearly stands out.

As a small flash within the circuit board of the computer you’re on, data transferred from server to machine, and you are there. The video plays a soothing, harmonizing melody, composed of old 90s 8-bit sounds from the era of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The song is, in fact, Bramble Blast from Donkey Kong Country 2 played on repeat for 14 minutes and 52 seconds. Something way more interesting catches your eye, the description says to you:

📌 Welcome traveller. You have reached the checkpoint of the internet.

This is an age-old story beginning with taia777 in 2012, where people from all walks of life would comment about how their life is going. In 2020 that original video was removed. In that video's honour, I have kept both the original title and video, as we have all found the video recommended to us seemingly from nowhere, with a Japanese title and low-graphics thumbnail. Yet, out of curiosity, we elect to watch it and find a beautiful community of commenters.

The comments on the video are fragments of a strangers life. Memories and personal moments flow into a timeline from anonymous commenters revealing how their life is going, what’s happened to them lately, and where they are at. All who came to the video out of seemingly random chance and vague curiosity, leaving behind a fragment of time, shouting into the greater void of the internet.

The Internet can typically be a cold and brutal place for the inhabitants within it. It's quite normal for a person to have a separately existing online identity that differs often greatly from their real world self. This causes those within the space to often hide the traits that they dislike about themselves, or to never appear vulnerable to others. This can often be paralleled to the idea of social masking, where societal pressures cause a person to internalize their feelings rather than speaking their mind.

However on the internet, we can often see rise to a level of anonymity that lacks a tangible form of accountability for ones actions. Commenters on videos can viciously attack a creator for any mean they see as reasonable. Those famous who share personal information about themselves or their location can lead to real world safety issues, they can receive death threats, or be stalked by overly para social fans and groups.

Because of these and many other factors, it can be rare to see a genuine moment of vulnerability from a user of Twitter for example, or a commenter on a video, or even the content creator who made it. The Checkpoint cracks this open, commenters share intimate details of their personal life, the struggle they are going through laid out while others come to aid them and reinforce them, if only for a small moment. There’s something surreal and fascinating about the feeling this evokes, the amalgamation of internet culture and human empathy, a crossroads we often find lacking in modern media.

Across the entire idea, there is a light within these comments. Although many share thoughts of sadness, stress, and anxiety at the future, the people respond warmly and tenderly, showing a moment of care for complete strangers. In this light exists this strange community of travelers, waiting for the next time this video floats its way back to them in the sea of millions of videos. An unspoken set of rules exists here, ones that in a way, I am breaking by writing this;

1 - You are a main character here.

2 - You do not find this video, it finds it’s way to you.

3 - You must not share this video with anyone, it must find them.

4 - You are here to make a checkpoint, saving your progress in this moment in your life.

5 - After your checkpoint, you are here to support other main characters on their own journeys.

This is why, although I am sharing this information with you, I will not link this video to you, dear reader. Nor will I encourage you to try to find it for yourself. Be patient, and hopefully one day, it will come to you. When that time comes, I hope leave your own checkpoint.

the modern western world

🎵 From turnpikes to highways And gravel into dust From soybeans to silhouettes advancing in the dusk Sky above I fell in love while I was sitting still The rate at which the Rust Belt fades to Appalachian hills, oh

Drive south as history unfolds The awe-inspiring, death-defying, meta-modern world Take my word, I think we'll be alright Lost myself along the way, but had the greatest time I'll pass you somewhere in the night*

A stranger out in Utah gestures towards the muddy car He said, "Hey are you nomads?" "Did you come from somewhere far?" I said, "I don't know man, but it feels that way today" This highway is the last breath of an empire in decay

Drive south as history unfolds The all-providing, soon expiring, modern western world Take my word, I think we'll be alright Lost myself along the way, but had the greatest time I'll pass you somewhere in the night

In their 2022 album “The Modern Western World” by Vansire, as well as it’s title song by the same name, Vansire sings fondly of travelling through the Rust Belt (A region in mid-northwestern America known for it’s industrial collapse and old industrial buildings, now decaying and rusted.) Throughout the video, they use the imagery of places they’ve been like such as the Skyline of Minneapolis and the Highways of Pittsburgh in a “Found Footage” aesthetic that matches the folky and melancholic style of the song.

The album itself is experimental in the sense of it’s progression in it’s own sound. From the beginning, the album presents a folk-like indie sound that progressively adapts and changes as the album goes on into a more modern listening experience. Eventually, the album becomes filled with rappers, electronic music, and more to sell the idea of moving more towards Metamodernity.

But what is Metamodernity?

In it’s roots, Metamodernity is that of the new contemporary feeling. It’s our position in a new era of design now that we have seen post-modernism take it’s course. Metamodernity applies to more ways of thinking than design. It can be about society, or the greater category of “art” as a whole. Rather than approach the concept of design from the idea of working solely for clients and commission based work, designers are finding themselves working more in their own interests and towards goals or personal issues they want to challenge. In Jack Clarkes article “The Role of the (Graphic) Designer…”, he says:

This new venture has materialized, at least in part, through an increased movement towards de-specialization and authorship (i.e. non-commissioned work) within the field, a development that has ultimately lead to an extension and acceptance of the idea of the ‘professional amateur’ as a legitimate occupation.

Jack Clarke, “The Role of the (Graphic) Designer…”, 2015

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And how does that apply to Design Fiction and myself?

Essentially, we’re seeing modern design take the deconstruction of post-modernist design, and then reconstruct it in metamodernism from a new lens to convey a new message or to provide a warning or insight on a cultural issue. In many ways, this could be considered antithetical to the post-modern doctrine, because metamodernism is actively adding narrative and constructing a worldview on a topic or idea, rather than attempting to deconstruct the idea of design.

Design Fiction, in that sense, feels intrinsically related to Metamodernity in my mind. But what separates a critical perspective of design fiction from a classic dystopian game, or book, or any sort of world created from an artistic medium? If we break down the idea of design fiction into it’s definition, Design fiction is ”a design practice aiming at exploring and criticizing possible futures by creating speculative, and often provocative, scenarios narrated through designed artifacts.”

Is the writing I did in my previous writing “Virtual Insanity” design fiction? Are the brands, technologies, and worlds that I imagined for this idea something that should be pursued as tangible products realized through a digital lens like blender?

What are the limits of Design Fiction?

Can Music be design fiction?

Can Archeology be design fiction?

Can a Video Game be design fiction?

So let’s think about some of the content I interact with often, from the lens of games and music. I think it’s quite easy to find design fiction in a game due to the nature of the props and objects within the game.

Sugar Bombs Advertisements, Fallout 4

Sugar Bombs Box Art Layout, Fallout 4

RAD-X Label, Fallout 3

Rad-X Pill Bottles, Fallout 3

Nuka Cola soda brand advertisement and metal sign, Fallout 4

We’ve talked about the post-apocalyptic world of fallout before, but I find that the props inside of the game are fascinating due to their branding and concepts being entirely based around nuclear power and radiation, this is of course due to the pre-war reliance of society on nuclear power that sustains everything around them.

In this concept for a post-nuclear power America, the designers view the people within the world as so reliant on “the gift of the nukes” that we design our food, cars, robots, and brands around them. The same can be said for this chilling “Desiccated Sustenance Bar” from Half-Life: Alyx, a VR game from 2020.

Real life prop version of the in game “Desiccated Sustenance Bar” from Half Life: Alyx

The bar reads “Desiccated Sustenance Bar - Water Flavor”, the “brand” of the bar is a abstract CMB, a shorthand for Combine, which is the alien race that invaded earth in the Half-Life series and enslaved humans. The alt-text reads “100g - Once seal is broken, consume within 9000 days”

But beyond this, beyond logos and packages with futuristic dystopian ideas on them, can the game itself they came from be design fiction? Can the world of the video game Disco Elysium itself be a form of design fiction? A game is created by a designer, a concept by a designer, the sound of the world by a designer, are they excluded from what we know as design fiction?

How about a song?

Let’s think of the song “Jet Set Classic”, by artist 2 Mello. The song is part of the album “Memories of Tokyo-To” (2018) and distinctly identifies itself as connected with the world of “Jet Set Radio” (2000), in this conceptual album for the game, it expands on the world-building and relationships in the game while sounding stylistically similar to the games original soundtrack created by Japanese producer Hideki Naganuma.

In Game Screenshot from Jet Set Radio on the GameCube

The world of Jet Set Radio revolves around the gangs and street culture of a futuristic Tokyo called Tokyo-To. The characters fight the authoritarian systems of power, skate around on inline skates, and tag graffiti over the walls of the city. The distinct art style (the first cel-shaded game ever made, in fact) as well as the iconic music with a unique and not seen before style led to a cult following behind the game itself and Hideki Naganuma’s music. The most interesting thing, however, is that the artist 2 Mello and the album itself has absolutely no connection to Jet Set Radio or the music producers of the game.

I argue that 2 Mello, in a sense, has created a “design fiction” where he has lovingly designed more world-building and story around the game within a completely authentic and accurate soundscape that could fit directly in with the original, and at the same time distinctly sounds like his work. He weaves stories and ideas into concepts explored in the game, such as gentrification, running from police, the culture behind the street gangs, and even using the iconic DJ figure “Professor K” from the game to deliver the lines in Jet Set Classic, feeding into the idea that everything the player and listeners hear is being broadcast right from the studio in Tokyo-To, Jet Set Radio.

Connecting all of this in, I think I want to set out on a idea of creating a “world” of which I can operate and create my own design fictions in through the various mediums of writing, graphic design, time-based media and more to attempt to create an authentic, dystopian, warning to people of the dangers of continuing along the path we tread.

An awe-inspiring, death-defying, meta-modern world where the people and places within it reflect the current worlds problems and troubles. Something about all of this design fiction stuff just tickles my brain in a way I seem to really enjoy, the contemplative and questioning nature of it fun to explore and dive into.

the signs

Today I was thinking a lot about a game I’ve slowly been playing over time called Disco Elysium. It’s a Story-based RPG set in a failed capitalist society that is facing abject poverty and crime rates at an all time high. You take the place of a detective who is at a low point in his own life, drinking himself into oblivion and losing his memory the morning you wake up in his shoes.

The game doesn’t shy away from political messaging, the main story of the game is focused on a murder that takes place the night before behind the hotel you’re staying at. The person who was murdered in question was lynched by a group of Dockworkers who were part of the local dockworker union, which was in ongoing strike against it’s corporate ownership Wild Pines Group. Throughout the game, you’re presented with dialogue and choices in a unique system that allows you to be empathetical or nasty, moral-bound or corrupt, and more in engaging and groundbreaking ways.

Disco Elysium, Revachol; Martinaise District Town Square

The interesting part of this and why I think it ties in to my writings here is the world-building and lore set in and around this world, thousands of years of history built up all for just this fantastic game. One I haven’t even been able to finish yet even with 30 hours invested over the last year or so. The ability that the developers showed in crafting meaningful and realistic conversations, people, and locations sticks with me to this day. I find myself just thinking about it now and then.

Disco Elysium OST - Instrument of Surrender

Why do we find post-industrial collapse, or just any collapse for that matter, beautiful? The games uniquely painter-like world and characters of course are fantastically done, but something of the collapse of it, the ruin of old structures that stood a thousand years before, the rotting of a factory site abandoned just 20 years ago, humans (especially me) seem to have an innate fascination with the post-apocalyptic and destroyed. The sound of Revachol, the horns that play a sad, distant melody of a town long past it’s prime, embellished trumpets of a once thought utopia. An almost nostalgic listening experience even on your first listen, a fading memory of a location in your head you’ve never even been to.

In my mind, I think of the places I’ve been. My hometown, which of course is not as bad as these fictional places. I can hear the sad melody of the town lying at the end of it’s time, The people there marching through the rhythm of life, trapped in a vicious cycle of a system that never allowed them an opportunity to escape like I could. The factories shut down, the money left with them, but the people remained. “Grind culture” tells them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, that being in this impoverished conditions is their fault as long as they keep buying their Starbucks coffee and eating McDonald’s. Just save your money!

Nobody wants to speak about the reasons behind these conditions, nobody wants to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the fault lies instead with the system in which they live, not the lives they lead trying to survive in that system.

Throughout my time playing games, these stories always stood out to me with visual imagery I found captivating, and concepts I fell in love with. The Fallout series, for example, is a alternate timeline from ours where a nuclear crisis was realized, and the world fell into apocalypse from the mass atomic bombing of WW3. A world stuck in it’s time of the 1940s-1950s, where people are barely getting by in the wastelands of post-nuclear America. The look of the 1950s era vehicles and buildings, the “futuristic” technology that looks like a amalgamation of the Jetsons tech and old science fiction, and the popular music of that era really immerses you in this idea a living, breathing, and dangerous world.

Fallout 4, Massachusetts, River Bridge

Fallout 76, West Virginia, Fairground Area

The people in these places are working hard trying to live in a world that literally blew itself up around them, is it their fault that happened?

Although I would never want to live within these worlds myself, I’m very happy just enjoying my time within them digitally, I find it interesting how interconnected we are with this idea of “Reclamation.” In time, the world will take back all that we build and our footprints will fade. Steel turns to rust, rust turns to dust. “Overgrowth” and the cycle of regrowth in that sense becomes something that is an inevitability for us as humans, as civilizations, and even as a species.

“Wild Mammals Roamed When Covid Kept Humans Home” By Emily Anthes, 2023

During COVID-19, humanity had a new obsession with animals reclaiming the spaces we typically used for the hustle and bustle of daily human life. It got a lot of people thinking about how the rivers became clearer, the stars more visible, and the air cleaner. It painted very vividly a picture of the beauty in the midst of a global crisis.

The Last Of Us, Part 1 - Giraffe Scene

During this time the catchphrase of the year was “Nature is healing,” but whether it was meant sarcastically or not, it was clear that nature was healing because we weren’t there.

In the series Nier, director Yoko Taro explores this concept by showing the cycle of humanity very clearly. It would be easy to believe that these pictures are backwards, that the right art is actually taken at the same time or before the left. However, in Nier, humanity (or well, the concept of “humanity” as humans are at this point far extinct) has been going through the cycle of technological growth for nearly 20,000 years. The concept of “ancient ruins” is flipped on it’s head, as the people in the game are unable to understand and interpret “modern” technology and thus consider it undecipherable. The ruins in this case are not stone temples or tombs, but instead old factories made of steel and other materials that could possibly take thousands of years to fully decompose. It brings about this interesting contrast of a medieval style society exploring the ruins of a forgotten factory, a concept typically thought of the other way around.

Nier: Replicant BG Concept Art

The late Japanese artist “Nujabes”, who is often credited as one of the inventors of lo-fi hip-hop as we know it today, had a song from the 2005 album “Modal Soul” Called “The Sign (feat. Pase Rock)”. It speaks about the state of the world and the warnings that we have failed to read as we move further towards our own dystopia.

The song itself is a hip-hop spoken poetry style piece with a distinct Foley sound which, to me, sounds like ice sloshing around in a drink. In my interpretation, I view the scene as a jazz band playing at a club trying to give a warning to the audience, but the audience just sips their drinks and watches on, not truly listening. The opening lyrics say:

🎵 You wanna watch it all fall apart? Every time I walk I watch I look, I notice, I observe I read the signs And the signs are pointing in the wrong direction The signs are not naming the streets Or leading you to the highways The signs are naming names Tombstones to mark the death of children not even born And I don't mean abortion I mean what is to come

The signs are telling me to turn back around The signs are telling me to research my past The signs are telling me to learn from my mistakes The signs are asking me questions Do you wanna watch it all fall apart? Do you have any control? Is there anything that you can do?

What will society look like 10, 200, 3000 years from now? Will humanity heed “The Signs” and move to the correct path, or will we end up like the town Revachol in Disco Elysium, will we end up like the wastelands of Fallout, or the forgotten empires of Nier? I think it’s important to view these pieces of media as warnings. Sign of what happens when we as humans lose control and continue down the paths we lead without second thought. Capitalism, Nationalism, Racism, and more issues just like those have led to a boiling point that feels like it could tip over at any point in our lifetime. I don’t have the answers or solutions to this either, I am just one person who sees the signs, and fears for our future.

Viewing humans as a main problem centered around these issues isn’t exactly groundbreaking, and the argument won’t really get you anywhere except for being called a “Doomer” who just sees our world as a lost cause, so let’s be clear here:

It’s not that we should see the world as a lost cause, but instead we should learn from these fictional worlds and media as “the signs” for our own problems. They serve as a warning that if we do not act upon these issues, our worlds could very much turn out that way too.