Art and design always represent the era with a new method. This means the form of presentation which is constructed in an era is the detonator that dismantles the meaning of the past era and produces a new form of presentation. Coming into the late 20...
Art and design always represent the era with a new method. This means the form of presentation which is constructed in an era is the detonator that dismantles the meaning of the past era and produces a new form of presentation. Coming into the late 20th century, the presentation aspect of modern graphic design is repeating the radical change process in the influence of the electric technology. Contemporary graphic design is expressing the individuality which was repressed all these years by the design rules, and it is producing a more subjective and original presentations as a result of a more open, diverse, and comprehensive challenge by borrowing the so called art forms. I have stipulated the innovative presentation aspects that are comprehensively appearing in modern graphic design including anti-reproduction, unclear, no meaning, and no shape, and I attempted an analysis for this.
This study is a new theoretical category for the analysis of modern graphic design’s Formlessness, and the sublime aesthetic of postmodern art philosopher Lyotard is hypothesized as the core theory. Lyotard assembled his sublime aesthetic by applying the early 20th century avant-garde art’s experimental mind based on Kant’s theory of sublimity to sublime analysis. Kant’s sublimity explains mathematical or mechanical sublimity confined to great nature and coercive natural phenomena, and on the other hand, Lyotard is presenting the sublime aesthetic based on a subject that is the empirical side of the appreciator on the avant-garde art piece. According to Lyotard, the avant-garde’s experimental art piece cannot be explained by the past art rules. Lyotard’s s sublime debate shares the same context with Kant in a way that it regards the Formlessness of avant-garde art piece, and it is providing a decisive clue to the interpretation of the modern graphic design’s the Formlessness.
For this study, I had to grasp the situations of the presentation aspect that bring about the Formlessness of modern graphic design. These are the extension of the presentation range followed by the development of technology, dissolution of traditional customs and standards, authorship of independent ego base, de-centralization of the presentation subject, ambiguity of image and uncertainty, multilayer of meaning and openness, and etc. The conclusion that analyzed designs that take on the Formlessness aspect through Lyotard’s sublime aesthetic is summarized to these four parts.
First, it proposes a critical mind of design tradition and notion as an experimental attitude, and Formlessness of contradiction makes one to aim a vivid originality. As a result, in design, a sublime requisites which are ‘unexpectedness and shock’ happen as in the avant-garde art piece that was noticed in Lyotard’s sublime aesthetic. This sublimity of representation disapproval happens because in the existing design idea and rule category, representation is disapproved.
Second, the development of electric technology showed radical propensity and sublimity of non-reproducibility on modern graphic design’s presentation aspects. Lyotard sees sublimity as a ‘radical event’ which did not exist in the concept and understanding before, and this is prescribed much as a ‘event’ and gets the essential factors of the generation of sublimity.
Third, in the modern graphic design, the authorship’s restoration which was asleep is rediscussed. The approval of authorship in graphic design means the approval of the designer as an individual being. Lyotard rejects the wholeness of simplification or standardization on human beings that meta-narrative leads and emphasizes the sublimity of individual’s discordance and difference. The graphic designer today is not buried on commercial logics and creates new visual vocabularies through active thinking and constant self-renewal. This is an individual being that a designer has and is created based on the sublimity of difference.
Fourth, the attempt of the Formlessness produces the sublimity of contradiction between multifactorial and heterogeneous constituents, and it aims for the originality of a new design form. Lyotard’s sublime aesthetic is frankly called ‘negative description of slublimity’, and this is always based on contradictional tension between sensual experience and ability of spiritual recognition in the experience of sublimity. In the attempt of graphic design’s Formlessness, the mutual consent of concept and sensuality with meaning and expression is not the object, and it is seen that sublimity happens in the case when contradictional situation between heterogeneous elements, which is mentioned above, continues.
This study has its significance in ordaining the presentation aspect of modern graphic design’s Formlessness and introducing Lyotard’s sublime aesthetic as the new theoretical category. The Formlessness that is showing broadly in modern graphic design had limitations in interpreting with the object of aesthetical suitability of harmony and proportion. To over come this limitation, this study analyzed the Formlessness of modern graphic design as the concept of sublimity which is represented by de-concept, Formless, and disagreement. In conclusion, this study is suggesting that Liotard’s sublime aesthetic can be the opportunity to expansively understand the Formlessness presentation aspect of current graphic design.