Preliminary thoughts on growth.

Madison.

At some point during last year's NaNoWriMo¹, Chris Baty mentioned - in one of his amusing, coffee-fueled pep talks - Bruce Mau's² "An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" as an inspirational reference point. It reads a lot like those cheesy, oft-forwarded email lists that I always ignore, but feels like the product of experience and critical thinking, rather than the vapid filler of Hallmark cards.

Mostly, anyways. A few that strike me as worthy of further consideration:

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

Maybe this was just how he thought eight years ago, but good no longer appears to be what we all agree on. Nor, as corollary to that, a "known quantity." It is, I believe, a highly subjective matter, but that's not what I'm getting at.

I'm concerned about growth because of the vagueness of it. I like to think that Mau is referring to development, to evolution, rather than to the process of enlarging. Given his design focus, this would make sense, but it's not clear. Especially given the way capitalism seems to work - the Wal-Mart effect - by rewarding bulk and power; this sort of growth abandons good. To foster growth at the expense of good, with no system to balance it, is dangerous. We need to retain the ability to rein in growth that has become harmful.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

I really like this one, especially coming from a man whose own life's work is deeply rooted in style. I've never had much of a knack for cool. In the design world, cool often supplants good sense, and it's always irritating.

That said, I don't have much to add. I think there's a crucial difference between those who are cool because they're pioneers, being bold and different - the minority - and those who are cool because they're mimics. The difference is that the former aren't trying to be cool; they're evolving and have the confidence to pull it off. It's not always a good thing. Sometimes it's naught but fluff and style. But it beats being a stylistic copycat.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

The key point here, I think, is that tools "amplify our capacities." This is not the same as an object we use to complete a certain task - which seems to be the common perception of a tool - but there is some overlap. I think our understanding of the role of tools, of technology, is better informed by this notion of amplification.

We use tools, especially specialized ones - think pneumatic nail guns, or lawnmowers - to accomplish certain specific tasks. Tasks that we can't do without them, at least in quite the same way. In a practical, mechanical sense, they simply redirect our energy into forms and directions our fingers can't manage. In a design sense, tools are objects or processes that enable us to bring an abstract vision closer to reality. Or that reality closer to our initial conception of it. In either sense, tools are simply "finglongers" for our skills and abilities.

Mau also notes that we should "hybridize" to create something unique. This is like a feedback loop through the tool, using our skills to enhance the tools to further develop our abilities. I think we forget this, but more on that under the next note.

29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

I don't think we should forget technology, but that we should learn to avoid relying on it. In particular, I think it's dangerous to rely on technologies that we don't fully understand - computers and cell phones come to mind, as both poorly understood and ubiquitous. When technology is a black box, placing our well-being in it is a remarkable leap of faith, and one that most of us do every day.³

I'm not advocating Luddism, in the sense of declaring all technology evil, of reverting to some benchmark in human history. The short and brutal existence of stone-age man (or of the Renaissance, or whatever), stripped of any romantic sheen, has all of zero appeal. But if you were only permitted to use a cell phone, or a microwave, after you were able to understand how it works? It's not difficult, and it makes such a difference in how someone uses that tool, in respect for the technology. In using it in the way it's supposed to work. In, as Mau puts it, hybridizing the tool to extend its, and our, capabilities.

In the same vein, I think that we need to better understand the networks, the systems that support us. Consider Michael Pollan and his attempts to trace a McDonald's meal back to its source, and his point - and not his alone - that cheap food is remarkably expensive, in ways that aren't easily quantifiable in dollars. Consider the American dependency on foreign oil, and its connections with terrorism, human rights violations, etc. Not knowing these things - not attempting to know these things - puts us in the position of being at the mercy of the black box.

Freedom equals responsibility. We all know this.

33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

"But this is HDTV! It's got better resolution than the real world."

It's so obvious, and yet...

What Mau doesn't say, directly, is not to simply get out and see the real world, but to pay attention. Look at the details, the subtle changes and differences in the world around us. The level of detail out there is always more than we can fully understand. You can't look too hard, too close.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

Imitation rocks. Seriously.

The clearest example of this, to me, is cooking-related, but it works in all sorts of endeavors. And the critical distinction is that it's not copying. Not plagiarism, passing off someone else's work as your own. It's attempting to recreate someone else's work, using your own skills and understanding to hit that target. It's something to reach for.

Nearly everyone who cooks does this, and I think it's an example most of us can relate to. We try to recreate the dishes, or a specific meal, that mom or dad used to make, and it's rarely the same thing. This is disappointing at first, because it's just not the same. Eventally, though, most of us make it into something that is distinctly our own, an evolution from the chicken pot pie that mom always made into the chicken pot pie that I make. I like mine. It's very much mine, with all of the hallmarks of my cooking style, but clearly an extension of the way mom does it.

It began as imitation, but allowed me to find my own style, as it were. Think of imitation as part of the process, not the destination, and you see it as another powerful tool. An underrated one, at that.

38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

This is the mantra of the small-scale farmer, the guiding principle of sustainable, organic, local agriculture. This is Chuck Jones' animation, the simplicity of minimalist, hand-drawn cartoons that are more expressive and engaging than any CGI razzmatazz, ever. This is craft beer. This is Richard Linklater's Waking Life, digging Rotoscoping out of the cinematic graveyard and showing off its potential. This is the farmers' market instead of the supermarket. The soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou. And so on.

This is the left field in which brilliant ideas are born.⁴

* * * * *

¹National Novel Writing Month, of course. The maddening and thoroughly exciting race to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days.

²Bruce Mau is a graphic designer based in Toronto. He's a pro-design sort of guy, who sees design as a powerful tool for change. His Massive Change exhibition is gearing up to hit the road, starting off at the MCA in Chicago in September. Design may not be my preferred tool for effecting change, but I can appreciate the need to understand its impact in the world today. I also think that those who do choose design as their primary vocation should be aware of the total import of their work.

³Like, say, computers and the internet. Or automobiles. How many people out on the road, at this moment, can actually explain how it is that their car propels them forward? How many of them know that the prized "new car smell" is the potentially toxic off-gassing of the materials making up their car's interior?

⁴And, yes, lots of crummy ones, too. Wheat, chaff, etc., etc.