No ideas hidden

When Carl Andre, the American artist, found his way to sculpture exploring the "sensuous" nature of steel, he denied there was anything more to it. "I said, 'There are no ideas hidden under those plates! They're steel plates and nothing else!'" When he was told a pile of stones did not make a work of art, he pointed to Stonehenge. "I was always fighting the rise of conceptual art," Andre says. "There was Joseph Kosuth's statement, 'Art as idea as idea.' And I said an idea in the head is not a work of art. A work of art is out in the world, is a tangible reality." Andre adds: "My work doesn't come from ideas – my work comes from desires." From interview in The Guardian 23.01.2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jan/23/carl-andre-turner-contemporary?INTCMP=SRCH

Remember, or forget?

What ideas do you need to remember? What ideas do you need to forget? That's the trouble with ideas lists. Although lists may help us to keep ideas organised, sometimes they just tie ideas to the past. And once we set out to realise the idea, something else happens. This new development makes the idea obsolete. But by then it might be too late. So in the fast moving world of ideas, forgetfulness may work in your favour. Memory, then, is not always the best friend of ideas.

Meccano days

One of Britain's leading inventors has warned that a 'Google generation' who rely on the internet for everything are losing creativity and practical skills because they spend too much time in front of screens. Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio, said he fears that the next generation of inventors is being lost, with young people often unable to make anything with their hands. But the 75-year-old inventor said that children have got to be taught hands-on, and not to become mobile phone or computer pendent, and could rediscover vital skills if schools used Meccano and other practical toys.

Say it with pencil

"This is how it was," says Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). "Architecture for me has always begun with drawing. When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since. The buildings do appear on paper the way you say, but they are not the result of gratuitous brushstrokes. The pencil is guided by so many thoughts stored away in my mental library. But, when I have looked at the site for a building, considered its budget and thought of how it might be built, and what it might be, the drawings come very quickly. I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say."

Collaboration and crowdfunding

Collaboration rather than the lone genius is what propels innovation. And sitting tight on ideas in the early stages of the design process is outdated. Says the project team behind the idea for adding an E-Ink screen to the back of an iPhone 5 case: 'Even a few years ago, it seemed unheard of to throw ideas out to the world very early in the process. Now it’s very viable and takes advantage of the best in the community to quickly develop products that the people will love.' Utilising crowdfunding, the 4-inch customisable screen called The popSLATE will be launched next spring. http://www.indiegogo.com/popslate

Idea formulation in the internet age

The study of languages has found that the background linguistic system, i.e. the structure, or grammar, of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather in itself the shaper of ideas. Formulation of ideas, then, is not an independent process but part of a particular grammar, and differs, from slightly to greatly, between different grammars, as argued by the linguist Benjamin Whorf*. This may suggest that ideation is a matter of different grammars. But, in the age of the internet and enhanced communication through social media technologies, is there an emerging global "super-grammar", or "super-ideation"? Or is this doubtful, in a similar way that the universal language project, as advanced by linguists throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, was doomed to fail, not least because of the inherent ambiguity and generality of language?** . * Carroll, J. (Ed.) 1954. Language, Thought, and Reality; Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, MA: MIT. ** Phemister, P. 2006. The Rationalists: Decartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Cambridge, UK: Polity

Words, words, and ... drawing

Q: "How do you design? Do you draw? Do you drape on a model?" A: "I design with words. When I'm in bed I write. Everything is really words which I communicate to my assistant, and then I start drawing. But first it's all about the words and the mood." Haider Ackermann, womenswear designer (Interviewed in Industrie 2012 Issue 5, pp 96-109) -------- This quote rings a bell with my research findings that language (written and spoken) is a major ideation tool. Or, that the role of language might be overlooked or underestimated in the early stages of the design process. [Jonson, B. 2005. Design ideation: the conceptual sketch in the digital age. Design Studies Vol 26 No 6 pp 613-624]