Papers by Catherine Ishino
(NOTE: given at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON. at Asian Research Group Conference, May 11 201... more (NOTE: given at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON. at Asian Research Group Conference, May 11 2015)
I’d like to start with my overall stance,
because I’m assuming I’m speaking to non-designers…
Like MacNab, I believe ‘Designers are visual ambassadors”.
Second,
I ’d like to assert Mitchell’s claim
that the “image …in academia,
has not been allowed to been allowed to speak
and the ‘written word’ is reified over,”
what he calls, ‘the ‘subaltern imagetext’.
So with these two stances in mind,
I’d like to further claim the visuals of 2008 Olympics
require a second look.
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material without express ... more © Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Tsinghua Design Magazine, Beijing , Aug 2014
Central Arguments
In the 2013 and third edition of her book, “An Introduction to Design and Cult... more Central Arguments
In the 2013 and third edition of her book, “An Introduction to Design and Culture: from 1900 to the present,” distinguished design history writer and professor, Penny Sparke, continues to ably trace the development and the role of Western design and designers as she has done in her two previous editions in 1986 and 2004. In this, her latest and updated version, Sparke efficiently weaves in the global and influential role design holds in shaping identities of the world’s cultures and lifestyles through the first decade of the 21st century. In doing so, she firmly situates today’s design practice and profession as one of leadership and prime mover in 2013. At the same time and where applicable, she intelligently updates chapters in the previous edition of her 2004 book to reflect more current attitudes of the social, technological and economic forces pervasive on design today. She accomplishes this task by tracing the role of Western design and designers in their relationship to global consumer culture and drawing from theories found in post-modern academic disciplines such as social history, visual culture, and media studies. Additionally, she includes current and fast changing technological trends such as design’s engagement in social media, virtual reality, and immersive environments. Next Sparke concludes her book with the rise of ‘glo-cal’ism’ i.e. the integration of global and local design sensibilities in the first decade of the 21st century.
Lastly Sparke has ably documented the design enterprise from the periphery of being a decorator of commerce at the turn of the 20th century, towards part of the inner circle during Modernism at the mid- century, later becoming a business partner of corporate globalism, and then entrepreneur in ‘glo- calism.” In the final analysis, Sparke summarizes the profession and practice as being highly able to flex and adapt to the forces and contexts of culture and commerce.
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino and 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
"Abstract
Hybrid visual languages can meet the needs of North/South/East/West design education, ... more "Abstract
Hybrid visual languages can meet the needs of North/South/East/West design education, without compromising the inherent strengths of any. As we make ‘the global turn’ into the 21st century, the awareness of how interdependent we are through our shared technological, economic, political and ecological interactions is obvious. Or as Marwan Kraidy, cultural media professor points out, we have come to the place of “Hybridization, or the cultural logic of globalization.”c1 He cautions us to use the term ‘hybridity’ with utmost specificity and contextualization as its overuse has rendered the concept a meaningless cliché. He also warns because of the exhaustive post-colonial linkages between hybridity and power, it is vital to look beyond historically applied tensions of domination and resistance.2 Thus Kraidy argues more contextualized interpretations and applications be researched to avoid ambiguous views of transcultural interactions."
COPYRIGHT FOR THIS BLOG
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
""This paper seeks to describe the Western visual hegemonic discourse surrounding the graphic des... more ""This paper seeks to describe the Western visual hegemonic discourse surrounding the graphic design of what is now called ‘the New China’ in the two decades prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the current global economic crisis. I will make the case before 2008 and the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) triumphant Olympic Games, China’s design was of being seen as a ‘subaltern visual object.’ from the perspective of the Western design profession. The latter’s stance lags far behind the prevailing counter-hegemonic narratives of the long-standing postcolonialists’ theories and theorists of the 1970s – 1980s. So in taking up the postcolonialists’ counter-hegemonic narratives, I contend the Western designers’ narrative of China was envisaged when the ‘Occidental’ hemisphere, perceived itself as reigning supreme over the ‘Oriental’ hemisphere, at a time when Euro-American capitalism was at its apex during the 19th and 20th centuries. The latter deemed their industrial and information revolutions as justifiable affirmations of their international imperialistic power. The Westernized hegemonic capitalism and image-driven consumer ethos became globally pervasive. However, following the visual tour de force of the 2008 Olympics and the West’s dramatic economic instability in late 2008, I believe the subordinate view of the New Chinese graphic design, held by the West, merits and requires a second look.
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.""
Design Altruism Project , Sep 9, 2008
In the next two sections, I will explore how China’s marketplace, citizenry, and identity have be... more In the next two sections, I will explore how China’s marketplace, citizenry, and identity have begun to transform with its entry into the overarching globalization narrative that has been taking place since the last part of the 20th century. Specifically, I will focus on the visual changes as reflected through its graphic design over the period of the past 40 years in Hong Kong and Beijing. Primarily I do this for the sake of argument, as Dr. Wendy Wong rightly maintains the impossibility to totally separate one city’s development from the other. This became visually apparent especially since the thematic poster exhibitions and exchanges began and became so far reaching, so fast. These also created a new form of design education for the once isolated areas of China. I select these places because of the brevity of this essay, and so I may more clearly focus on Hong Kong and Beijing having disparate beginnings and present day comparisons.
Beijing was allowed entry onto the global stage during the Communist government’s Four Modernizations Policy in 1978, its Open Door Policy in 1979, and most recently the preparation for its debut of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Hong Kong, under a hundred-year rule by the British Empire, returned to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. The latter city began to lose its momentum in the region as the design leader when it switched from the sole free capitalist economy and returned to the Mainland. Though Hong Kong has its own free market economy, it remains under the Communist Peoples Party regime. As a result, Hong Kong appeared to go through a visual identity crisis with what Wong terms ‘decolonization’ by the United Kingdom and ‘recolonization’ by the PRC.
Until recently, a positive view on the state of modern Chinese graphic design was difficult to fi... more Until recently, a positive view on the state of modern Chinese graphic design was difficult to find in the Western trade press. Hong Kong, under the rule of the British Empire up until 1997, was seen as simply mimicking and copying Euro-American works. The Mainland’s designs, under the Communist regime and economy since the 1950s, were dismissed as solely propagandistic and emulating the former Soviet Union’s visual mannerisms. It is as the New China, with its new market economy and powerful global presence, that Western design professions have begun to take notice that they have powerful design competition to face. Yet the Euro-American typecasting of Chinese design still lingers on, as evidenced in London’s current Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition, called China Design Now.1
"This paper presents an overview of the historical development of video oral history, and the pla... more "This paper presents an overview of the historical development of video oral history, and the place it has achieved in the USA, including a report on the outcomes and studies conducted by the Smithsonian Institution, in conjunction with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 – 92. It demonstrates how effective video oral history can be in documenting how graphic designers situate their works within the larger, global visual culture. As a case study, I refl ect on video interviews conducted in Beijing with three generations of Chinese designers in 2004, which draw on my experience in art directing television newscasts in order to highlight parallels between video oral history and news
documentaries."
Does by Catherine Ishino
This paper seeks to describe the Western visual hegemonic discourse surrounding the graphic desig... more This paper seeks to describe the Western visual hegemonic discourse surrounding the graphic design of what is now called ‘the New China’ in the two decades prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the current global economic crisis. I will make the case before 2008 and the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) triumphant Olympic Games, China’s design was of being seen as a ‘subaltern visual object.’ from the perspective of the Western design profession. The latter’s stance lags far behind the prevailing counter-hegemonic narratives of the long-standing postcolonialists’ theories and theorists of the 1970s – 1980s. So in taking up the postcolonialists’ counter-hegemonic narratives, I contend the Western designers’ narrative of China was envisaged when the ‘Occidental’ hemisphere, perceived itself as reigning supreme over the ‘Oriental’ hemisphere, at a time when Euro-American capitalism was at its apex during the 19th and 20th centuries. The latter deemed their industrial and information revolutions as justifiable affirmations of their international imperialistic power. The Westernized hegemonic capitalism and image-driven consumer ethos became globally pervasive. However, following the visual tour de force of the 2008 Olympics and the West’s dramatic economic instability in late 2008, I believe the subordinate view of the New Chinese graphic design, held by the West, merits and requires a second look.
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.
Transcultural by Catherine Ishino
Seeing by Catherine Ishino
Journal of Design History, Jan 1, 2006
Uploads
Papers by Catherine Ishino
I’d like to start with my overall stance,
because I’m assuming I’m speaking to non-designers…
Like MacNab, I believe ‘Designers are visual ambassadors”.
Second,
I ’d like to assert Mitchell’s claim
that the “image …in academia,
has not been allowed to been allowed to speak
and the ‘written word’ is reified over,”
what he calls, ‘the ‘subaltern imagetext’.
So with these two stances in mind,
I’d like to further claim the visuals of 2008 Olympics
require a second look.
In the 2013 and third edition of her book, “An Introduction to Design and Culture: from 1900 to the present,” distinguished design history writer and professor, Penny Sparke, continues to ably trace the development and the role of Western design and designers as she has done in her two previous editions in 1986 and 2004. In this, her latest and updated version, Sparke efficiently weaves in the global and influential role design holds in shaping identities of the world’s cultures and lifestyles through the first decade of the 21st century. In doing so, she firmly situates today’s design practice and profession as one of leadership and prime mover in 2013. At the same time and where applicable, she intelligently updates chapters in the previous edition of her 2004 book to reflect more current attitudes of the social, technological and economic forces pervasive on design today. She accomplishes this task by tracing the role of Western design and designers in their relationship to global consumer culture and drawing from theories found in post-modern academic disciplines such as social history, visual culture, and media studies. Additionally, she includes current and fast changing technological trends such as design’s engagement in social media, virtual reality, and immersive environments. Next Sparke concludes her book with the rise of ‘glo-cal’ism’ i.e. the integration of global and local design sensibilities in the first decade of the 21st century.
Lastly Sparke has ably documented the design enterprise from the periphery of being a decorator of commerce at the turn of the 20th century, towards part of the inner circle during Modernism at the mid- century, later becoming a business partner of corporate globalism, and then entrepreneur in ‘glo- calism.” In the final analysis, Sparke summarizes the profession and practice as being highly able to flex and adapt to the forces and contexts of culture and commerce.
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino and 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Hybrid visual languages can meet the needs of North/South/East/West design education, without compromising the inherent strengths of any. As we make ‘the global turn’ into the 21st century, the awareness of how interdependent we are through our shared technological, economic, political and ecological interactions is obvious. Or as Marwan Kraidy, cultural media professor points out, we have come to the place of “Hybridization, or the cultural logic of globalization.”c1 He cautions us to use the term ‘hybridity’ with utmost specificity and contextualization as its overuse has rendered the concept a meaningless cliché. He also warns because of the exhaustive post-colonial linkages between hybridity and power, it is vital to look beyond historically applied tensions of domination and resistance.2 Thus Kraidy argues more contextualized interpretations and applications be researched to avoid ambiguous views of transcultural interactions."
COPYRIGHT FOR THIS BLOG
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.""
Beijing was allowed entry onto the global stage during the Communist government’s Four Modernizations Policy in 1978, its Open Door Policy in 1979, and most recently the preparation for its debut of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Hong Kong, under a hundred-year rule by the British Empire, returned to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. The latter city began to lose its momentum in the region as the design leader when it switched from the sole free capitalist economy and returned to the Mainland. Though Hong Kong has its own free market economy, it remains under the Communist Peoples Party regime. As a result, Hong Kong appeared to go through a visual identity crisis with what Wong terms ‘decolonization’ by the United Kingdom and ‘recolonization’ by the PRC.
documentaries."
Does by Catherine Ishino
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.
Transcultural by Catherine Ishino
Seeing by Catherine Ishino
I’d like to start with my overall stance,
because I’m assuming I’m speaking to non-designers…
Like MacNab, I believe ‘Designers are visual ambassadors”.
Second,
I ’d like to assert Mitchell’s claim
that the “image …in academia,
has not been allowed to been allowed to speak
and the ‘written word’ is reified over,”
what he calls, ‘the ‘subaltern imagetext’.
So with these two stances in mind,
I’d like to further claim the visuals of 2008 Olympics
require a second look.
In the 2013 and third edition of her book, “An Introduction to Design and Culture: from 1900 to the present,” distinguished design history writer and professor, Penny Sparke, continues to ably trace the development and the role of Western design and designers as she has done in her two previous editions in 1986 and 2004. In this, her latest and updated version, Sparke efficiently weaves in the global and influential role design holds in shaping identities of the world’s cultures and lifestyles through the first decade of the 21st century. In doing so, she firmly situates today’s design practice and profession as one of leadership and prime mover in 2013. At the same time and where applicable, she intelligently updates chapters in the previous edition of her 2004 book to reflect more current attitudes of the social, technological and economic forces pervasive on design today. She accomplishes this task by tracing the role of Western design and designers in their relationship to global consumer culture and drawing from theories found in post-modern academic disciplines such as social history, visual culture, and media studies. Additionally, she includes current and fast changing technological trends such as design’s engagement in social media, virtual reality, and immersive environments. Next Sparke concludes her book with the rise of ‘glo-cal’ism’ i.e. the integration of global and local design sensibilities in the first decade of the 21st century.
Lastly Sparke has ably documented the design enterprise from the periphery of being a decorator of commerce at the turn of the 20th century, towards part of the inner circle during Modernism at the mid- century, later becoming a business partner of corporate globalism, and then entrepreneur in ‘glo- calism.” In the final analysis, Sparke summarizes the profession and practice as being highly able to flex and adapt to the forces and contexts of culture and commerce.
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino and 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Hybrid visual languages can meet the needs of North/South/East/West design education, without compromising the inherent strengths of any. As we make ‘the global turn’ into the 21st century, the awareness of how interdependent we are through our shared technological, economic, political and ecological interactions is obvious. Or as Marwan Kraidy, cultural media professor points out, we have come to the place of “Hybridization, or the cultural logic of globalization.”c1 He cautions us to use the term ‘hybridity’ with utmost specificity and contextualization as its overuse has rendered the concept a meaningless cliché. He also warns because of the exhaustive post-colonial linkages between hybridity and power, it is vital to look beyond historically applied tensions of domination and resistance.2 Thus Kraidy argues more contextualized interpretations and applications be researched to avoid ambiguous views of transcultural interactions."
COPYRIGHT FOR THIS BLOG
© Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Jo Ishino, 2014 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.""
Beijing was allowed entry onto the global stage during the Communist government’s Four Modernizations Policy in 1978, its Open Door Policy in 1979, and most recently the preparation for its debut of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Hong Kong, under a hundred-year rule by the British Empire, returned to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. The latter city began to lose its momentum in the region as the design leader when it switched from the sole free capitalist economy and returned to the Mainland. Though Hong Kong has its own free market economy, it remains under the Communist Peoples Party regime. As a result, Hong Kong appeared to go through a visual identity crisis with what Wong terms ‘decolonization’ by the United Kingdom and ‘recolonization’ by the PRC.
documentaries."
As an entry point, for this paper, informed by discourse and visual analysis, I will show how three major and classical postcolonial theories of the ‘subaltern’ can be attached to China’s graphic design, pre-2008. Furthermore, I will argue for the subordinate term, ‘subaltern’, be re-evaluated and detached from this rising Eastern nation’s ‘imagetext.’ Lastly, this paper is speculative gesture, as I would like to test the viability in the academic arena of combining the premises of postcolonial theory to the underlying assumptions made in the Western graphic design profession.