Turn This Leaf Into A Weapon

17_ × TURN THIS LEAF INTØ A WEAPØN. 100 Provocations in Constraint

17_ × TURN THIS LEAF INTØ A WEAPØN. Ryan Slone MFA Graphic Design Vermont College of Fine Arts ¬

100 Provocations in Constraint

“We all live by rules and regulations, Rules and regulations now.

Isn’t it a bore, isn’t it a chore?

Sometimes it’s so hard remembering all those strict rules, codes, laws—all those stipulations.

But without those rules and regulations, where would we be now?”

Rules & Regulations Lyrics by Thomas and Friends ●

SAY THÁNK YOU.

�

Thank you, fam. Thank you, haterz. Thank you, juvenile rabbits that I kept as pets in 1991. Thank you, Erma, for letting me and my brother and sister stay in your basement shelter during tornadoes. Thank you, Coach Harding, because without the humiliation you imposed, I never would’ve quit 9th-grade basketball, which means I never would’ve joined the swim team, which means I never would’ve met Matt, which means I never would’ve followed him to college, which means I never would’ve met Olivia, which means I never would’ve fallen in love and got married and had kids and ended up here, stuck somewhere in between where I want to go and where I’ve been, but moving in the right direction. Thank you, Core4. Thank you, Sloths. Thank you, Dina. Thank you, Ian, who’s brilliance and empathy and humor and generosity and inspiration and vulnerability keeps me in it. Thank you, Due Studio, for Slack Light, Grotta Regular, and Analo Grotesk. Thank you, Moxy Ox, for printing this book. Thank you, Tasheka, David, and Natalia, for the direction, inspiration, and support along the way. Thank you, Molly and Regan and Christine and Jonny and Annie and Kenzie and Lane and Kat and every other brilliant young designer that I get to teach. Thank you, mom and dad, and sorry for burying you in the middle of this list. Thank you, Georges Perec, Tehching Hsieh, Luna Maurer, Phoebe Bridgers, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, John Cage, Oliver Klimpel, Abäke, and Olivier LeBrun.

Thank you, bro. Thank you, sis. Thank you, Olivia, Davis, and Gavin, for your collective patience, steady encouragement, and love.

FOLLOW THESE RULES.

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Tasheka, sign your name anywhere in the book without using a pen, pencil, or marker. □ David, order your favorite take-out meal. Once it arrives, use a condiment included with your food as visual confirmation of your signature somewhere on an even-numbered page. ● Natalia, cough three times, spin around until dizzy and sign your name with your eyes closed on the back cover. ⁄ Ian, put a pen in your mouth and sign your name on page 27 while listening to “Bells of St. Augustine”

by Burt Bachrach. ∅ The completion of these steps will result in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design in the Graphic Design program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont. ≈ Ryan Slone, 2021

CATEGORIZE THEM.

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WRITE 1 7 16 29 37 48 76 92 COLLABORATE 5 31 49 60 64 77 93 99 AI 44 57 59 GENERAL 11 13 14 17 18 19 24 27 41 42 47 50 53 54 56 58 62 63 65 69 73 75 81 82 84 86 89 90 91 95 96 97 100 101 BODY 4 32 40 52 66 71 80 85 SEQUENCE 6 22 28 30 34 43 45 55 74 83 88 94 98 BONDAGE 15 21 33 39 61 84 TECHNOLOGY 12 20 23 36 51 67 INFRA-ORDINARY 2 26 46 68 79 TIME 3 8 9 10 25 35 70 72 87

1_ ● WRITE AN INTRØDUCTIØN.

INTRODUCTION

● Number 53: Make this shovel dance.

Number 19: Google search the name of someone you hate. Write them a letter.

Number 28: Bang your head against the nearest door fifty times while singing the lyrics to a sitcom from your youth. Resist the urge to scratch your forehead afterward. Instead, scratch a mirror. Look into the mirror and ask yourself if you feel better. If not, watch an old episode of said sitcom on YouTube. If so, draw a portrait of the sitcom’s protagonist scratching their head.

For the last six months, I responded to one hundred questions and documented the often unpredictable experiences of working with constraints. In “Turn This Leaf Into a Weapon,” I examine what might happen if I choose to embrace these limitations rather than fight against them. How does the acknowledgment of constraints affect my decision-making? Can these self-imposed obstructions enable a new way of seeing things, both for me and others?

How can I find humor, absurdity, and joyfulness in everyday life?

Let’s back up for a moment. For over a decade, I worked tirelessly in a design agency

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that encouraged nothing more than making clients happy. I also worked for someone who made me feel shitty about things I couldn’t control—things like deadlines, budgets, privacy, vacation policies, company aesthetics, optics, and personal growth. In short, I worked for a control freak who couldn’t cope with uncertainty and, thus, micromanaged every last detail of my professional existence.

In this environment, all aspects of my working life were filtered through him. The bookshelves in our cubicles had to look a certain way. The dress code could get you openly ridiculed if you deviated from the business casual expectation. How much to say (or not say) in a meeting was a constant reminder of the power dynamic. The typeface. The color palette.

The brand strategy. The budget and the solution and the hours spent—all were controlled by the man in the suit.

Working under such strictly enforced rules locked me into a place of rigidity and fear. I was afraid to make mistakes, fearful of taking risks.

I rarely challenged myself and instead found comfort in the status quo. Hunkering down to please the client was the only objective, and

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INTRODUCTION

frankly, the only thing that mattered. I was in survival mode.

In that environment, I was a designer who worshiped at the altar of the solved problem.

In retrospect, I was naive. But at the time, and under the approval of my boss, I believed I could wave a magic wand and stealthily produce an array of strategic, beautiful, and problem-solving solutions. What I didn’t realize was that design problems—most problems, for that matter— can’t always be solved. Designers aren’t forensic investigators. Can problems be questioned?

Sure. Prodded, poked, and uncovered? Of course, but solved?

No longer do I believe in the all-knowing designer. I’ve learned over time that I’ll never have all the answers, and that’s okay. I want to be vulnerable and open with my process.

I’m also not afraid anymore. My education at VCFA has given me space to experiment, to fuck up, to get weird, to challenge years of mental and emotional abuse. It’s been the best therapy I could’ve hoped for.

Today, I’m more excited by what I don’t know. I don’t want to be a detective-designer searching for an answer. I’d much rather exist

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within the process. I get off on feeling alive in the middle of the run—the bleeding nipples, the nasal-draining loogies that come with completing mile number seven, the kneecracking goodness of watching my feet hit the pavement in front of me—I could care less what place I finish.

My interest is rooted in genuine curiosity.

I’m fascinated by the emancipating power of constraints in a creative endeavor and their ability to disrupt predictable outcomes. I don’t think anyone wants to be status-quo. I certainly don’t. I’d much rather peel back the sod and play with the worms than look at the finely manicured lawn. I seek freedom within rules.

I want to be more present and reflective and believe there’s humor in everything if we look hard enough.

The one-hundred constraints explored in this book forced me to question all aspects of my life, including many that I struggled to accept. Frequently self-imposed, many provocations afforded me the opportunity to confront my vulnerabilities. I devised prompts that forced myself out of the desire to peopleplease. I challenged my insecurities of being

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INTRODUCTION

uncomfortable in a performative space. I tested my patience as an adult living with ADHD. I found humor during a year when it was sorely missed.

Acknowledging my struggles allowed me the space to confront them.

For example, I wondered if the reason my nine-year-old started dropping f-bombs was from my lack of parental interaction. So, I put down my phone one Sunday afternoon, and we played football and Fortnite and ate old Halloween candy. On another occasion, I worried about my students’ mental health as our school announced another semester of remote classes.

To let them know that I was hurting too, I wrote a silly love letter in all emojis.

I used my saliva, body hair, and blood as utensils, shifting what I thought a designer’s tool could be. I danced with a shovel in my yard, waiting for a response from my nosy neighbor.

I asked a stranger from Finland to answer a prompt, and she responded with a beautiful interpretive dance. I worked in neural networks, responding and reacting to AI technologies as a method of forfeiting control. I asked others to tell me what to do, some strangers, others people I admired. I worked on a spectrum, imposing

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strict rules on one end and abstract prompts with vague directives on the other. I sought out new ways of challenging myself as a creative agent. �

So, dear reader, what really happens when you replace the time spent on your phone with something more purposeful? Can the reordering of an old text message to your dad change your relationship? Is it possible to express the subtle beauty of urination in a collage made in only seventeen seconds?

Why don’t you put your feet up on this couch and find out? Here’s a cup of tea with a spoonful of honey that I’ve made just for you. If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard, head down, studying the leaves. ●

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2_ × Stare intently at something non-screen related for 20 minutes.

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me, an aging l i a r; her, a... cris p ly folded-

[just looking at the egg and this egg alone] → 20 minutes 9

3_ × Design something for a non-designed task in the same amount of time it takes to complete that task.

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[urinating] → 17 seconds of glitch algorithms 11

[peeling this orange] → 46 seconds of blind contour drawing 12

[walking the dog] → 18 minutes of collage 13

[putting on socks] → 37 seconds of online searching 14

[opening every drawer] → 4 minutes, 16 seconds of data viz 15

4_ × Create something beautiful from something grotesque.

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[spit] → typeface 17

5_ × Ask a friend for a prompt and do as they say.

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[“sing for your life while she’s dancing”] → 30-minute song at midnight 19

6_ × Recall the age of your first kiss. Multiply that by 13. Subtract the remaining days in the week and duplicate. Then add the number of breaths you take in 60 seconds, and subtract by how many hours are left in the day. Next, add the total sum of your internet searches the day prior. Ask yourself if you remembered to brush your teeth today. If not, add 45, but if so, subtract by 4. Walk to a nearby door and count the steps, subtracting this number from your current total. Finally, take your total and enter it into an Amazon search field and buy the least expensive thing on the first page of results. When it arrives, write a review.

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[408] → Dremel 408 ½" Sander Bands, Course, 6-Pack 21

7_ ◊ TALK ABØUT YØUR FEARS.

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FEAR

● I’m in this Bermuda triangle phase in my career, where I’m a student and a teacher and trying my best to stay afloat in the circling complexities of both. My background in practice comes fraught with its problematic tendencies, but I’m learning how to cope and hope to pass along the good parts of that experience.

I’m afraid of this thing that started happening a couple of years ago. I would wake up in the middle of the night, thinking I couldn’t breathe. I could, though, but the thought of being aware of my breathing was crippling.

Now, whenever I hear someone mention mindful breathing exercises, I cringe. Also, COVID-19 has not eased this anxiety.

I’m afraid of a future conversation that will inevitably happen sometime during the 2030s, I predict. It will occur at a restaurant over Christmas break when my two sons are home for the holidays with their partners. They will no doubt talk about my anger issues and my impatience when they were young kids. In great detail, they will explain to everyone at the table just how fucking explosive I used to get about getting to bed on time. They will remind their mom how the slightest thing would set

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me off. They will be right, and I will laugh it off. They will laugh too, I hope. This eventual scenario could also unfold during a road trip or in a hot tub during a family ski trip to Colorado.

However, we’ve never been skiing, and that is clearly an attempt to romanticize what I think will be a moment of self-pity.

I’m afraid of coming across as selfindulgent in this book.

I’m afraid of getting old and what my face will look like in twenty years. I’m afraid of my knees going out. My back has hurt for the last three days, so I hope it’s a strained muscle and not a sign of what’s to come.

I’m afraid of not knowing the answer, and then being asked a question where I should know the answer, and not giving any answer.

I’m afraid of wasting a good portion of my life with my head down, sucked into a screen.

I’m afraid of snakes when I mow my lawn, and they just like fuckin’ jump out of nowhere, and the movement is so unpredictable, but also a bit seductive and cool looking.

I’m afraid of admitting to anyone that I once painstakingly wrote all the lyrics to Billy

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FEAR

Joel’s seminal hit, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” so I could boastfully recite it to my friends. It was only weeks later that I found the printed lyrics inside the cassette tape’s liner notes.

I’m afraid of sunburns, high-blood pressure, and fleece that can catch a fingernail at the wrong moment.

I’m afraid of Zoom crashes, Slack interruptions during dinner, and the sound of my mom’s voice when she calls with bad news.

I’m afraid of my limitations. ●

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8_ × Do something for the same time duration as your average daily screen time.

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[playing with my kids] → 4 hours, 12 minutes 27

9_ × Write a love letter in 15 minutes.

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[Slack message to students] → 15 minutes 29

10_ × Do one thing every hour in 12 minutes for 12 hours consecutively.

1

First word you hear → design it

2 Second person you see → write them a love letter 3 Third word you repeat → draw it 4 Fourth person you see → take their photo and re-work it 5 Fifth smile you see → express it 6 Sixth text of the day → send it back in a different order 7

Seventh email you receive → is content for a poster

8 Eighth thing you see in a room → illustrate it 9 Nine different ways to self-bind → list them 10 Tenth object you find during a walk → do something with it 11 Eleventh person in your recents → call and draw the conversation 12 Twelfth person in your texts → ask for a photo and design it

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

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11_ × Do you have a pet? If so, great. Let them make a thing for you.

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[dog licking a peanut butter coated computer mouse] → art 33

ON PROCESS 3

Seemingly banal, habitual tasks like urinating, walking the dog, or peeling an orange often go unnoticed, undocumented, or forgotten in the chaos of our everyday lives. Inspired by the Oulipo—a French literature movement whose members seek to explore constrained writing techniques—I chose to elevate these mundane tasks by acknowledging their space in our lives, and to that end, by creating durational work according to their presentness.

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Saliva, much like watercolor, is a medium that flexes and transforms slowly over time. So I had to work quickly before it dried up. I started by collecting a large pool of spit on my eggshell IKEA desk, and then after a cup or two of water and some gum, I had roughly enough saliva to fill a small glass. I guided the spit in various directions with a toothpick, hoping to create both organic and somewhat recognizable letterforms. The “N” came first, followed shortly after that with the “C.” There is no copy/paste or delete with spit; what you get is what you get. What I got was a table of dripping text that read, “Nice Guy,” and a few errant looks from family as I later explained why the desk was wet.

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What better example of constraints than those of specific, arbitrary instructions? Here, a path of absurdly proposed data leads me to review a highly-specialized sander band for a highlyspecialized drill that I don’t own. That didn’t stop me from writing a persuasive Amazon review of the product, with a dash of historical rhetoric to boot.

8

I remember the educational books on parenting that my wife and I brought home from our local public library a few months after our first son was born. We devoured those books, often talking openly about how we’d be different parents than our friends who’d slap an iPad in their toddler’s face when she got cranky. Fast-forward to the present day, and it’s not uncommon for our weekends to spend in isolation; the kids on their iPhones, PlayStations, or laptops, with my wife and I, nose-

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deep in our glowing pocket-rectangles. 4 hours and 12 minutes is a helluva lot of time to have your head down doing anything. On this day, I decided to do something about it. I put the phone down, picked up a football, and played outside with my children.

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I have a lot of students who are hurting right now. Some of their parents and loved ones are sick. Some of them are (or have been) sick.

Some have had to pick up a part-time job to help their family’s make ends meet. All in all, it’s been a challenging semester for a lot of people. I want them to know how much I care, so I wrote them a love letter with emojis. It was a small gesture, but a moment of connection.

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The trick is not to put peanut butter on the mouse itself, but instead to first wrap the mouse in plastic wrap and then coat it with Jif (or Peter Pan or Skippy or one of those oil-based, au naturel versions if you’re feeling frisky). The next thing you want to do is open Photoshop and center the mouse to the middle of the document because once your dog starts licking, the cursor will be flying all over the place. Also, preemptively close all email browsers, text messages, and Slack apps for good measure.

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12_ × Reorder your oldest text’s letters or words and send it to the most recently texted person or group on your phone.

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eat shit in skool ron [“Looks like late this afternoon. No worries!”] → “eat shit in skool ron” 37

13_ × Draw the rhythm and melody of a song as it plays.

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[“Halloween” by Phoebe Bridgers] → 4 minutes, 31 seconds 39

14_ × Design a gift for the seventh person you speak to today.

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z z zzz z z z z z

[for my friend, Farzane Abolbashari] → thank you card 41

15_ × Choose one item from each of the three lists of task constraints from the categories below. Respond accordingly.

1 S OMA → one-handed, blindfolded, bound with another, upside down, running and or moving, bound, gagged, masturbating, being touched, defecating, urinating 2 S ONIC → spoken word, sermon, lecture, hip hop, classical, jazz, blues, white noise, nature sounds, podcast, conversation, argument, internal noise, laughter 3 P ICTORIAL → found objects, analog collage, digital art, video, song, motion graphic, typography, speculative design, critical design

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[bound and gagged while listening to a sermon] → hand-lettered flyer 43

16_ ● WRITE ABØUT CØNSTRAINTS 1. While listening to aleatoric music 2. At the same time of continuous walking 3. During 30-minute intervals

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CONSTRAINTS

● Ernest Hemingway once made a wager with friends that he could write an entire story in just six words. Naturally, they were skeptical, even of an artist considered by most as one of the greatest American writers of all time. After all, how could one seamlessly weave together the necessary ingredients of a compelling story in such a limited space? Hemingway proved his doubters wrong with the following: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

In fewer words than most tweets, the author’s novel response underscored an often overlooked aspect of the creative process; constraints force us to make tough decisions, and when we have less to work with, we begin to see the world differently.

From Hemingway to Monet, artists’ traditions in all genres have used the emancipating power of constraints as enablers to creativity. Musician Igor Stravinsky once proclaimed, “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self.” Even today, in an age of affluence and abundance in which consumerism and overspending are the norms, constraints play a role in many different domains, and in many of our time’s most

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revolutionary creative products. Marissa Mayer, former vice-president for search products and user experience at Google, recently wrote in a publication on Bloomberg, “Constraints shape and focus problems and provide clear challenges to overcome. Creativity thrives best when constrained.”

One might view the role of constraints as reserved only for those rare iconoclasts.

Still, as some have argued, anyone interested in unlocking their untapped potential can utilize conditions as catalysts for discovery.

In the book “Creativity from Constraints: The Psychology of Breakthrough,” artist, and psychologist, Patrica Stokes, examines the role of self-imposed constraints in various creative domains: art, literature, fashion, architecture, and advertising. In her view, one can discover alternative pathways by systematically employing a dichotomic conceptual framing technique. Stokes argues, “The creativity problem is strategic and structural. It involves selecting (the strategy part) paired constraints (the structure part) that preclude reliable, successful responses and promote novel, surprising ones.” Through historical

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CONSTRAINTS

examinations of pre-eminent artists such as Stravinsky and Picasso, Stokes asserts that creative breakthroughs can occur by the agent freely setting up challenges for themselves.

Stokes unpacks this at length when discussing the work of Claude Monet: At the start of the Impressionist movement, Monet’s constraints precluded dark-light contrasts, which, by extension, precluded both the illusion of depth and sharply outlined shapes (specific old ways of producing representational paintings). They simultaneously promoted contrasting closely-valued colors, which, in turn, enabled flat patterns with soft-edged shapes that shared brushstrokes and colors (specific new ways).

Monet didn’t come up with those constraints arbitrarily.

They were strategically chosen to realize his new goal criterion—showing how light breaks up on surfaces.

The author encourages further research into these self-binding acts of personal restraint, but how might we consider the effectiveness of constraint-theory as it applies to more contemporary creative scenarios?

Current scholarly research supports the enabling properties of creative practice constraints rather than seeing them as obstacles. A recent study that examines

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how thinking about scarcity or abundance influences how creatively people use their resources, Ravi Mehta at the University of Illinois and Meng Zhu at Johns Hopkins University discovered that people simply have no incentive to use what’s available to them in novel ways. When people face scarcity, they give themselves the freedom to use resources in less conventional methods because they have to. The situation demands a mental license that would otherwise remain untapped.

Danish designers and scholars Michael Mose Biskjaer and Kim Halskov have developed a new classification of constraints, one they refer to as “decisive constraints.” The authors build decisive constraints on two definitional conditions related to radical decision-making and creative turning points. Heavily influenced by philosopher Jon Elster’s seminal work, “Ulysses Unbound”—who carefully analyzes human agency spanning philosophy of mind and practical rationality, political science and the creation of art—Biskjaer and Halskov categorize constraints as intrinsic (given by the material, fixed properties, etc.), imposed constraints (various requirements and demands

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CONSTRAINTS

emerging from the given context), and selfimposed constraints (the agent’s own voluntary choices such as a director’s decision to shoot a contemporary movie in black and white). By exploring these constraints within the scope of their joint research practice, the designers demonstrate pragmatic applicability to the impact of constraint-based theory: What we have noticed over time in the various interaction design research projects that our lab has been involved in is that some of the choices leading to the most significant, creative progression of the design process are rooted in counterintuitive, radically limiting self-imposed creativity constraints that dramatically prune the design space. By generating creative turning points, these radical choices become crucial—or better, decisive—for the outcome of the design process. And this is the reason for our proposition’s decisive constraints.

In one project, an interactive architectural light installation for the Danish pavilion, the team employed self-binding constraints in the form of a designed manifesto half-way through the collaborative design process, further guiding them in identifying solution alternatives to expected outcomes. Limiting

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their available choices on medium, architecture, form, speed, colors, and visual content, the decisive constraints they imposed on themselves lead to a novel solution in both materiality and experience: Resorting to a design manifesto to promote originality was new to us and thus represented a break away from our typical design strategy. Essentially, it severely challenged our tacit design decisions by cutting off standard solutions and usual choices based on prior experience and knowledge, and it forced us to reevaluate our domain savvy and toolkits as designers.

Employing a rigid design manifesto of various creativity constraints in this way exemplifies radical decisionmaking, which thus satisfies a self-imposed creativity constraint to be considered decisive.

From an art-oriented perspective within contemporary culture, self-imposed limitations can be crucial to an artist’s aim in multiple domains. In “Restrained Drawings,” renowned American painter Matthew Barney binds himself with cords and carabiners, forcing the artist to create works of art under extreme bodily restraints. In the film “The Five Obstructions,” Lars Von Trier initiates improvised constraints for his mentor to re-

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CONSTRAINTS

create while documenting the various attempts.

In hip-hop, we look to Jay-Z, who restrains himself from writing anything on paper, and instead, improvises all rap as pure freestyle improvisation—a limitation originating from his childhood experiences in Brooklyn in which he would rap out loud while walking home from school to avoid the neighborhood bullies from stealing his book of rhymes. Constraints, however extreme, can serve as significant catalysts for many artists, regardless of classification.

Creative practitioners from a variety of disciplines are well aware of the complex nature of constraints. By utilizing these conditions as enablers rather than limitations, constraints can force people to see things differently, and in doing so, push past preconceived notions into new territories of discovery. ●

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17_ × Turn this leaf into a weapon.

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[leaf found in the backyard, Cave Springs, AR] → collage 53

18_ × Visualize someone’s thoughts.

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It really bothers me when people

do not use coasters —

particularly

on

my

table.”

[Reese Witherspoon’s secret] → 5,040 permutations 55

ON PROCESS 12

The oldest text message was a year old and sent by a friend about meeting up for drinks.

The newest message, and the recipient of this text collage, was my dad, Ron. He immediately called me after receiving the message one Tuesday morning, thinking I had been drinking.

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American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers often sings about death and mental health with a penetrating lyrical sensibility. In “Halloween,” Blake Mills’ methodical, jogging guitar is at odds with Bridgers lush vocals that pull across the track like warm taffy. Each dot is a beat. Each line is a durational indicator of her voice. “I hate living by the hospital; the sirens go all night. I used to joke that if they woke you up, somebody better be dying.”

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My friend and colleague, Farzane Abolbashari, is from Tehran, and we often speak of the language barrier that she faces while teaching English-speaking students. I’ve been trying to communicate with her from time to time in Persian, though it’s challenging and clumsy looking. I decided to send her a thank you card in her language, as she was the seventh person I spoke to that day. I’m glad it was her and not a stranger.

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The wheel of constraint spoke, and I listened. With my wrists bound by electrical wires, mouth glutted with an old shirt, and a Southern Baptist sermon blasting at decibel breaking volume in my headphones, I tried to illustrate a flyer for a fake lecture I was to give. But somewhere during the process, I ended up regurgitating the fire and brimstone mantras in rough and hurried line-work.

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Every November, I spend a good two weeks doing nothing but raking leaves in my backyard. We live on the edge of a large wooded area, and the oaks and sycamores provide a crunchy blanket of leaves to discard. I suppose I could’ve found a leaf-shaped like a knife or pulverized enough tree trash to create a powder of dust from which to use as a drawing

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material, but I thought a more timely approach might be a better fit. Admittedly, I cut him up a bit, but it was all with good intention.

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I’m not sure you’re aware, but seven different Reese Witherspoon’s will afford you 5,040 various permutations of America’s suburban sweetheart. Over the years, I’ve watched Reese in movies and TV and am always captivated by her everyday appeal and genuine spirit. My wife has even convinced me that the two of them would be besties IRL. Interesting. But is Ms. Elle Woods as wholesome as she’d like us all to think? All the saccharine story arcs, the doe-eyed innocence, and the southern girl twang have me troubled. I wonder if there’s something that truly gets under her skin, like rude guests who leave water stains on her Noguchi table. Or perhaps the ivory mane of Ted Danson can send her into a frantic, get-your-freak-on tizzy. Who knows for sure? I, for one, like to think she’s just as weird as the rest of us.

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19_ × Google search the name of someone you hate. Write them a letter.

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[an asshole from junior high] → Joel Brayfield, Springfield, MO 59

20_ × Make something that won’t work.

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[a new iPhone] → tape 61

21_ × Do something while holding your breath.

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THIS IS FOR EVERY MARGINALIZED PERSON; FOR EVERYONE THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ME. THIS IS FOR THOSE WITHOUT A VOICE; FOR THOSE WHO STRUGGLE TO

[homage to Biden & Harris] → poem 63

22_ × The moon’s eight phases are given a numerical identifier from 1 through 8, beginning with “Third Quarter” and progressing to “Waning Crescent.” Take the current day’s moon phase, and add the percentage of illumination. Then, multiply that sum by the numerical age of the last person to whom you said, “I love you.”

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I

Love

you

[Waning Gibbous (2) x 61 - 11] → 111 65

23_ ×

Don’t stay in one place.

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[family’s driving routes in a 24-hour span ] → 91 miles 67

24_ × Illustrate the rhythm of a song while it plays in real-time.

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[playing drums on a computer keyboard to Otis Redding] → pixel art 69

25_ × Write one word, every day, for 100 consecutive days.

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Today it broke. We took care of the delicate situation by silently withdrawing from her gaze, and in doing so, walked home without worry. After all, the reason it took longer than anticipated was not my doing, that I can tell you. I wanted it done much earlier, but Carl wouldn’t take no for an answer. It took him weeks to soak all the rags in lighter fluid before lining them up in a neat pile and storing them away in my pickup bed. Hell, I’d been ready since Crystal’s boss started snitchin.’ That was the last straw for me.

[one word a day] → 100-day story 71

26_ × Observe the infra-ordinary, the endotic over the exotic.

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[dishes in the sink] → 4-second Ouvipo study 73

27_ × Think of a built place, environment, or physical space that means something important to you. Make something.

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[driving past my late grandmother’s old house] → video 75

28_ × Bang your head against the nearest door fifty times while singing the lyrics to a sitcom from your youth. Resist the urge to scratch your forehead afterward. Instead, scratch a mirror. Look into the mirror and ask yourself if you feel better. If not, watch an old episode of said sitcom on YouTube. If so, draw a portrait of the sitcom’s protagonist scratching their head.

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[Officer Carl Winslow from “Family Matters”] → portrait 77

ON PROCESS 19

I guess I hold grudges because it’s been a while since I’ve interacted with this guy from junior high. He was an asshole with a capital “A”—the real deal, Holyfield. Strangely enough, he’s now a nurse and married a sweet-looking woman, so go figure.

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Covering your iPhone with tape makes for a messy clean-up.

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I held my breath for about 42 seconds and wrote the first thing on my mind. It had been a trying few days of election drama, but on this particular day, the light of a Biden/Harris victory had illuminated whatever fear and dread I must’ve been holding for the last few months. It was a good day and a fitting way to exhale.

24

If you hold a laptop upright, it feels a little like a big, mechanical book. But if you flip it on its side and hurl it around while jamming to Otis Redding, it tends to feel like a hybrid between an old Casio and a classic Gibson. I don’t know how to play the guitar in full disclosure, so envision a bad ’80s-era music video but without the pompous hair.

25

Every day, for 100 days straight, I wrote one word, continually adding to an unplanned story.

26

In 1973, the French writer and Oulipian Georges Perec wrote an essay titled, “The InfraOrdinary.” In it, he pined for the habitual over the spectacular, the tea spoons instead of ‘tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and forest fires’ of our time.

“What’s really going on, what we’re experiencing, the rest, all the rest, where is it? How should we take account of, question, describe what happens every day and recurs everyday: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual?” So with that, I asked, “what is my obvious?” I soon found myself at a familiar place: hunched over the sink, washing a plate and silverware after scarfing down some leftovers.

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27

813 S. Kentwood looks a lot today like it did back in the ’90s, which was probably the last time I stepped foot in my grandmother’s old house. I can still hear the floorboards creak as my 10-year-old feet shuffled to the kitchen for Saturday morning pancakes. I remember the sunlight bursting through the front door window, cascading a yellow glow on the green shag 70’s-era carpet. It was a modest home, just 2-bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen— small by today’s standards. The driveway, destroyed by the slow-growing roots of a massive sycamore, would make an audible thump as you pulled up to the garage. Today, though, there was furniture on the front porch, unrecognizable and uncomfortably new. I saw a Honda Civic parked outside that looked nothing like my grandfather’s old Buick. I didn’t want to look inside, so I kept driving past.

28

Extracted from a fandom.com post: “Carl Winslow is a great dad. He is very protective of his children. (I agree with this). It was a shame his father Samuel died. (I don’t remember this at all). He was angry that his brother Frank didn’t attend the funeral because he was devastated that he couldn’t handle the fact that he was gone. (Again, no recollection of this). I was glad he doesn’t have OCD like Danny Tanner from ‘Full House.’ (For the record, I couldn’t agree more with this take. So much of early ‘Full House’ episodes centered around this lazy plot line).

He is a great police officer. (True). He wasn’t afraid to confront the racist police officer Jack Evans who roasted his son Edward. (An iconic scene, indeed).”

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29_ ◊ WRITE ABØUT TIME & NIETZSCHE & SØME CHEETØS. 80

TIME

● On the morning of October 20, 2020, at 7:34 am, I spend 37 seconds putting on socks. They are cobalt-gray, semi-translucent in spots due to continual wear, and were purchased for $11.33 as a pack of two from Old Navy’s “Get This Season’s Newest Looks At Affordable Prices In Every Style, Size & Color” online sale the previous winter.

56 minutes earlier, and 983 miles northwest in Casper, Wyoming, Isabella Marie is born to Angel and James Ritz. She is 6 pounds, 10.6 ounces, and 19.5 inches long—a healthy baby girl. Angel is in labor for 4 hours, 10 minutes.

18 minutes prior, @lesbianaa tweets, “I’m getting my Pandora from baby boy braids. I can’t with the weave anymore.”

At 8:03 am, an obituary is printed from nearby Magnolia, Arkansas, for 94-year-old Virgie Garrett Hudgens, who passed away in her home. Virgie was born May 23, 1926, in the Lamartine community, north of Waldo, AR. She was retired from serving as the Columbia County Deputy Treasurer and the Columbia County Deputy Tax Collector. She was a member of the First Baptist Church in Magnolia, and one of her biggest joys was cooking for her children and grandchildren.

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One hundred thirty-eight years earlier, Friedrich Nietzsche publishes “The Gay Science” and proposes the concept of Eternal Return, which centers around the notion that the universe and all its energy recurs. Essentially, if it’s agreeable that both speed and time are infinite, then it would follow that time would recur an infinite number of periods. Nietzsche deems the idea of looping time as “horrifying and paralyzing,” referring to it as a burden of the “heaviest weight” imaginable: “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’...

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?

Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’

Fast-forward to October 20, 1978, as performance artist Tehching Hsieh is 21 days into his one-year durational performance in New York City. In “Cage Piece,” which lasted from September 29, 1978, through September 30, 1979,

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TIME

the artist locks himself in an 11.5 x 9 x 8-foot wooden cage, furnished only with a washbasin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. He doesn’t allow himself to talk, read, write, or listen to radio and TV during the year. Robert Projansky, an attorney, notarizes the entire process to ensure the artist never leaves his cage during the year.

His loft mate visits daily to deliver food, remove the artist’s waste, and take a single photograph to document the project. Over the next 22 years, Hsieh will complete five more durational pieces before retiring from making art on January 1, 2000, at age 49.

It is 6:07 pm on October 20, 2020, and I spend 4 minutes and 16 seconds opening up every drawer in my house. I find an old DVD of “The Fast and the Furious” which I don’t recall ever watching, but I recognize the actors on the cover; Vin Diesel and the other guy who died. Their portraits are stark, and the diagonally positioned sans-serif typography is blurry and bad-ass looking (if you are a 13-year-old boy). I throw the DVD in the trash, along with a semi-opened bag of Cheeto’s, a T-Mobile bill from September for $152.09, and a sizable chunk of dog hair. ●

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30_ × Walk outside and head west. Proceed for 500 steps and look down. Choose an object to collect. Repeat this three more times until you return to the beginning.

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36.2614440 91796875,94.2317657 4707031

[Očhéthi Ŝakówiŋ Osage Wah’ Kon-Tah] → 2,000 steps of found objects 85

31_ × Ask a non-graphic designer to design a logo in one hour.

86

[Micheal Jackson’s Moving Company] → logo designed by 9-year-old, Gavin Slone 87

32_ × Copy something bad, but make it worse.

88

[Thomas Kinkaid’s “Candlelight Cottage”] → drawn by mouth 89

33_ ×

Make dangerous art.

90

[using scissors while riding a bike] → cut-paper 91

34_ × On your computer, go to your Finder. Enter the number “79823” in the search bar. From the results, select the sixth document from the top and use a word from the file name in a poem.

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You can make a mask from raw arugula You can wear it to Walmart and feel pretty You don’t talk You don’t touch your face

[NIKON D90 Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 10-24mm f3.5-4.5G ED-RAW.lcp] → poem 93

35_ × Do the same thing twice, first in 60 seconds and then again for 60 minutes.

94

[drawing two circles] → top: 60 seconds; bottom: 60 minutes 95

36_ × Examine how you’re spending time.

96

[one day of scrolling on my phone] → 383 thumb-strokes 97

37_ Δ PRETEND YØU ARE SØMEØNE ELSE. 98

“RISE AND EMBRACE THE JOURNEY”

● Well, hello, hello, hello! What’s up, folks?

Good evening, everybody. I’m so happy to be here with you tonight in this beautiful ballroom at the Springfield Hyatt Regency. This place is spectacular, isn’t it? Thank you for having me.

Now, I know we have to be socially distanced and all, but if you’re having trouble seeing from the mask-fog of your glasses, my name is Dean Lindsay of Dean Lindsay Interactive. I’m an author and speaker and I’m here to pump you up!

Guy in the third row over here is like, “Huh? I thought we were getting Mario Lopez!”

But, seriously, folks, I just realized how much better looking my crowd was last night in Cincinnati compared to you. Now, what’s up with that?

I’m only kidding—I was in Cleveland last night. Ha!

Okay, okay, all jokes aside. I couldn’t be more jacked to be here with you guys. Now seriously, this is an elite crew, am I right? You all are the premiere central-Illinois sales associates for Windemear Securities. You guys are rock stars in the residential security industry and I’m pumped to share my patented words on leadership that I

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call, “Rise and Embrace the Journey.”

Now, when we think about that phrase, “Rise and Embrace the Journey,” what we’re really talking about is one word: progress. And as you might realize, there’s a big difference between progress and change. All progress is change, but not all change is progress. Remember that.

Those of you in this room that are single (or maybe you just plan on being single, I don’t know), have at one point said to yourself, “you know, I just need to meet somebody new.”

And guess what happens next? You meet somebody new, and you’re like, “Oh, no—not that person-new!” You walk into a room of opportunity and you say to yourself, “Okay, that’s change. That’s change. Change. Change. Change.

That’s cha—hey, that’s progress!”

Guys, rising up to embrace change is all about how we view it in our minds. When you’re looking at some of the new initiatives that you want to take, or when you’re thinking of some of the goals that are being established that you’re attempting to work toward, it’s vital that you position those in your mind as progress and not as change.

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“RISE AND EMBRACE THE JOURNEY”

Now, I want you to hear me here: It’s natural for us to resist what we view as change, but we embrace what we view as progress. Let me say that one more time: It’s normal for us to fight change, but accept progress. We need to recognize the differences between the two.

Now has anyone in here ever had somebody say they hate change? They’ll say stuff like, “Oh I just don’t do change, no sir.” Well, let me tell you something: the next time you have somebody say

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they resist change, and they work for you, and you’re paying them in some capacity, offer them a raise. I bet they take that change!

You see, you have to get out of bed every morning and believe that you are rising up toward progress. That’s our journey, our path to progress. You have to believe in progress or you’ll never be able to change. It’s that simple. This doesn’t just apply to sales, but to life itself.

I talk to a lot of folks about change and everyone says, “Hey Dean, this is all great but how do I get there?” Well let me tell you. I’ve developed what I call “Lindsay’s Six P’s of Progress.” I’m talking peace of mind, pleasure, profit, prestige, pain avoidance, and power. I urge you to try and keep these at the forefront of your life. Trying to close

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“RISE AND EMBRACE THE JOURNEY”

a deal? Ask yourself why? More often than not it will be one of these six P’s. The bottom line is you won’t activate the product-leadership gene inside you without unlocking my Six P’s of Progress. It’s really that simple, and I encourage all of you out there to try implementing a few of these during your next sale. You might be surprised at how quickly you go from change to progress in the blink of an eye.

In summary, I want you all to remember that people must see you as progress, as a unique mixture of peace of mind, pleasure, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power. That’s your identity, and you should wear it with honor.

I’m Dean Lindsay. Thank you, and remember, “be progress.” ● Award-winning business author, Dean Lindsay – CEO of The Progress Agents LLC, Former Chief Marketing Officer of SyncLab Media and Founder of World Gumbo Publishing – is a successful entrepreneur, an insightful executive coach, and a powerful keynote speaker with a humorous and engaging approach.

The popular host of the upbeat business program, ‘The DEAN’s List’, airing on C-Suite Network TV, Dean has been hailed as an ‘Outstanding Thought Leader on Building Priceless Business Relationships’ by Sales and Marketing Executives International as well as: ‘a Master of Progress’ by Jay Conrad Levinson (Father of GUERRILLA MARKETING); ‘The Dean of Sales and Service’ by Business Class News; a ‘Sales and Networking Guru’ by the Dallas Business Journal and ‘America’s Progress Agent’ by The Strategic HR Forum.

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38_ × Make a cup of coffee or tea and take a sip. Did you squint? If not, go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before. However, if you squinted while sipping, grab a nearby book and flip through the pages quickly while counting silently for as many seconds as the current time.

Pause and bookmark the page on which you landed. Then, call someone and read it to them continuously until they hang up the phone.

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P E DAG O GY O F TH E O P P R E S S E D PAU LO F R E I R E W ITH A N EW I NTR O D U CTI O N

BY D O N A LD O M AC E D O A N D A N A FTE RWO R D BY I R A S H O R

103 → I consider the fundamental theme of our FUNDAMENTAL epoch to be that of domination domination

�

which implies its etisoppo the theme of liberation

as the objective to be achieved.

[passage from “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”] → page 103 105

39_ × Do something you probably shouldn’t do.

106

Carry around a heavy gift for your landlord. Remind yourself to thank him for the Home Depot coupons he left in the mailbox. Ask for a free month’s rent after delivering his present—a box of old hospital plasma you took from Eric’s garage last Sunday.

Whisper congratulatory words to yourself at the thought of this gift in a pseudo, Michael Bublé tempo, pausing and dragging syllables like a cool swing beat. Smile until he acknowledges your arrival. Ask again for a free month’s rent. The box is weighing you down. Don’t flinch. Carefully stand on top of it but avoid popping the gelatinous bags of blood protein.

Demand a response. Wait delicately on the box, standing still like a surgeon while he reaches down.

[texting while driving for 5.6 miles] → short story 107

40_ ×

Put your body into it.

108

[plucking leg hairs] → Berthold Bodoni lowercase “r” study 109

ON PROCESS 30

We acknowledge the sacred grounds of the Očhéthi Ŝakówiŋ Osage, the Indigenous people to whom this land belongs.

31

“The Arkansas Department of Labor & Licensing states that to employ a child under 16, the employer must obtain a work permit. There are limitations on the hours of work and the types of work a fourteen or fifteen-year-old can perform.

Types of work a child under sixteen cannot do include the following occupations: soldering, in scaffolding, in any tunnel or excavation, in any pool or billiard room, operating circular or band saws, in any saloon, resort, or bar where intoxicating liquor of any kind is sold or dispensed.” No stipulations prohibit the development of brand identities for former pop icons, including those who flirted with a late-career shift in residential moving services.

32/33

Restraining myself in these performative pieces allowed the act itself to be noteworthy.

Further, I was forced out of predictable patterns and into uncomfortable territory. By embracing these extreme conditions, I felt awake, present, and grateful for the privilege of engaging in a design space that questions our roles of working.

34

Does scarcity foster resourcefulness?

35

Sometimes, spending more time on something doesn’t always result in a better outcome.

It’s a paradox of the tight frame, and I’m fascinated by this idea of counterintuitive processes in a creative endeavor.

36

I’m amazed (and a little disappointed) that our thumbs can’t grow muscles. If they could, I would probably fall somewhere in the middleweight division—noticeably bulky, but not near the girth you’d see in those Gen-Z heavyweights.

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37

Dean Lindsay is an award-winning business author and a powerful keynote speaker with a humorous and engaging approach who has been hailed as ‘America’s Progress Agent’ by The Strategic HR Forum. Dean helps organizations: ROCK the customer experience, create PROGRESS in a world of change and build priceless business relationships that MAKE MORE SALES. If you would like to inquire about booking Dean for an upcoming trade show or as a visiting critic at a graduate design residency, please visit deanlindsay.com for a schedule and pricing.

40

I started growing body hair at an embarrassingly early age. I’ve always been a little ashamed by the sheer amount of my torso-whiskers and wished I’d hit puberty during the ’70s—the golden age of celebratory body hair. So the sadistic act of forcibly pulling out clumps of my leg hair was quite satisfying. I’m sure Massimo Vignelli would be horrified at my bastardization of his beloved Bodoni, but it could use a little Burt Reynolds, I think. Is “Burtdoni” a convincing name for this typeface?

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41_ ×

Constrain your writing.

112

sociopaths exist, sorcery, and septums; olefin exist, and sociopaths, and serotonin; shame, semesters, and memory exist; sameness, silence and sameness exist

[“S”] → alphabet poem 113

42_ ×

Make a mashup.

114

[Sepultura: Dr. Phil, Adam Duritz, and Avril Lavigne] → band promo 115

43_ × Draw 10 random words from a hat, a friend, or an online source. Weave the words into a conversation during a work meeting as naturally as possible.

116

1. Profound 2. Satisfied 3. Transition 4. TRAIL 5. Content 6. Product 7. Infection 8. Even 9. Recession 10. Chauvinist [10 words from wordrandomizer.com] → Zoom meeting with co-workers 117

44_ × Create a generative musical composition using machine learning.

118

[Bluegrass + Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” + piano] → AI-generated model from MuseNet 119

45_ × Right now, drive 62 miles south from your current location, then take your first right (wherever that is) and proceed for 5 minutes and 22 seconds. Stop, get out of your car, and look at the ground.

Pick something up, preferably something shiny. If you can’t find anything shiny, dig a hole (using your shoes or hands are acceptable) and speak your fears into it for 3 minutes.

Take a picture of the hole with your phone after you finish.

120

[Pecan Grove road, near Alma, Arkansas] → photo of fear-hole 121

46_ ×

Re-think your tools.

122

[attaching two markers to a broken Roomba] → 50 sq. ft. room visualization 123

47_ × Forget about black and white for now.

124

[adding color] → swirls 125

48_ ↑ WRITE ABØUT SØMETHING YØU’VE LEARNED. 126

LISTENING & WAITING

● I got a call sometime in the middle of the day last month from my best friend, Anna. I remember looking down at the crunchy pin oak leaves as I stood in my backyard while meandering around the petrified piles of dog poop. I listened to her musings on the intrinsic benefits of a Buck Mason t-shirt, her hesitation about an upcoming weekend in Plano with her wife’s parents, and, as usual, her dog issues, to which I was keenly appreciative of as the new owner of a quarantine puppy.

As she was winding down, and I had all but finished my custodial backyard duties, she exhaled, and in a soft, appreciative tone, said, “Thanks for listening.”

“No worries,” I replied.

I love to listen. If there was anything that I enjoy more than listening to friends, students, colleagues, parents, children (you get the picture); you’d be hard-pressed to find it.

“Listener’s gonna’ listen,” as they say (or should say, I think).

As friends do, listening is critical in my relationship with Anna. We’ve been together in some form for nearly a decade. Only nine years apart in age, she was my first design student as

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I moonlighted as an adjunct instructor. We worked together at a design agency and started teaching in tandem some years later, so we pretty much hadn’t been apart, and it showed in how we saw the world.

She listened to me every day, up until last March, when the world stopped, and it became harder to stay in touch. Most people don’t talk about how hard this thing has been on friendships. �

Halfway through my class’s first Zoom lecture of the fall semester, I saw the dreaded black screens appear: one by one, faces vanished from my gaze as if an e-learning black hole had absorbed their collective mass. Silently, students turned off their cameras, leaving the remaining few survivors and I locked in silent acknowledgment that remote learning had lost the battle once again.

I ended class early and called Anna. This time it was me doing the talking.

“Why can’t they just focus during one class period?” I pleaded. “Is it because they’re only

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LISTENING & WAITING

sophomores?” I mused. “Am I that boring?”

I admit I was a little dumbfounded. I had prepped my lecture with various anecdotes, some fun gifs, and even sprinkled in a few memes here and there for good measure. Sure, it may have lasted longer than I had hoped, and it was past 4 pm on a Tuesday, so maybe a little later than what they were accustomed to, but still, this was good, engaging content (or, so I thought).

I rehearsed my topic a week in advance, spent countless hours typing out Keynote lecture notes, and still, it didn’t seem to matter.

I went on and on about my frustrations of feeling alienated, disconnected from them, and lost in the void of black screens and muted engagement.

Anna paused for a while, collected her thoughts, and then said something that I won’t forget: “So, do you feel like you know them?”

“What do you mean?” I replied defensively.

“Well, I mean, you can continue to lecture like you’re doing now, and maybe they’ll come around, or you can try and get to know them better­—to connect with them one-on-one. I think everyone’s just exhausted right now.”

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She was right. They were fatigued. I was, too, but I had held onto some false hope that remote learning would be the same as being in person.

I was wrong. While trying to fit everything into one neatly packaged digital product, I had lost sight of why I chose to teach in the first place. I left a career at a design agency because I wasn’t fulfilled, and connecting radically to my students gave my life new meaning. I had to shift; to simplify my methods for this new format.

So, I took my best friend’s advice and started listening again, but in a way that I hadn’t before. Frankly, I listened hard, and I listened long.

I listened as Molly talked about her father’s death at twelve and how that helped shape her bespoke typeface’s dreamscape qualities.

I listened to Regan speak openly about her eating disorder, her sick mom, and the struggle of perfectionism as she grappled with ways to communicate these issues in a personal zine. I listened to Lane as he underwent the challenges of transitioning and continuously dealt with his repressive parents’ backlash.

I started showing up on Sunday afternoons for one-on-one remote meetings. I broke my self-imposed rule about not responding to

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messages on weekends and sent Slack notes late into the night on Saturdays. I stayed after class and did whatever I could to connect with them.

Often, we talked about design, but sometimes we didn’t, and those conversations were often more meaningful. I didn’t do it out of some desire to make them more productive designers, I did it because I knew they needed it.

From that moment on, I stopped teaching— at least in the way I had before. After a while, I realized the constraints of remote teaching— of instructing through a screen—made me a better teacher. Teaching on Zoom forced me to acknowledge that it didn’t work, and that was a good thing.

It’s funny, but in those Zoom one-onone’s, I bonded with them in ways I hadn’t before.

It’s as if we both put our guard down, safe in the democratized, flat hierarchy of pixelated rectangles. Gone were the hallowed halls, the stark white classrooms with the professor’s podium perched at the front of the room, elevated both physically and metaphorically. The ‘guide on the side’ was now ‘seen on the screen.’

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�

I don’t remember a time in my life when the act of waiting has held so much, well, weight.

We’re now living in a waiting culture—waiting for the vaccine, waiting to embrace our loved ones again, waiting for things to get back to normal. In this time of crisis with no clear end in sight, acknowledging what it means to exist with uncertainty and keep going deserves to be recognized.

As design educators, we must wait, too.

I want to propose a pause in current online design education. Three-hour Zoom lectures on Gestalt principles can wait. Half-day crits in Miro can sit this one out. Group projects in breakout rooms can hold tight. All this talking and directing and lecturing into the void can [command+q] for now.

As I see it, what’s needed most in design academia today is counter to what we’ve always assumed to be true. Students need less of us as teachers and more of us as people. How can we ask them to demonstrate empathy for an audience if we’re not modeling that same behavior? Our students need us to be radically

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LISTENING & WAITING

engaged in their lives, not a digital torso locked to a grid, appearing twice a week for ninety minutes. They want to be seen on the screen.

Listen, they’re right. ●

133

49_ × Ask a stranger to contribute.

134

[Arin, a dancer from Moscow] → interpretive movement study #2 135

50_ × Imagine, for a moment, that your life is scripted.

136

FADE IN INT. KITCHEN / HOME -- DAY DISGRUNTLED DAD (40s) grabs a plate of leftover ham from the kitchen counter. Scrawny SON (8) sits nearby on the tile floor, moving toy LEGOs around and singing to himself out loud.

DAD: Walking toward the living room, trips over the toys, sending the plate of ham flying as he falls to the ground.

DAD Goddamnit! What the fuckkkkkk! Ahhh, my foot! I think itʼs broken.

Silence. SON, startled momentarily by the commotion, gets up, walks to the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of milk.

DAD (CONTʼD)

Boy, how many times have I told you

to not leave these devil toys on the floor?

SON (sarcastically)

How am I supposed to know that, dad?

Besides, I thought you were an atheist.

DAD

Real funny. Now go pick up this mess before

someone else gets hurt.

SON starts laughing uncontrollably for a few moments, then pulls out something thatʼs been hidden behind the milk carton: A GLOCK 9.

Before the DAD can react, SON FIRES three shots into the CEILING: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! INT. BEDROOM / HOME -- DAY MOM (30s) shoots awake her from a nap, reacting to the GUN SHOTS. MOM (looking into camera)

Looks like weʼre gonna need a clean-up

again on aisle-home.

[dramatization of semi-real events] → screenplay opening 137

ON PROCESS 41

Inspired by the Danish experimentalist poet Inger Christensen, this systematic poem adheres to one letter of the alphabet, and the number of lines is dictated by a neutered version of the Fibonacci sequence (each number is the sum of the two preceding ones). The lowest single numeral in the sequenced result determines the line-length. In this case, it is 5—the lowest number extracted from 6,765, which is the Fibonacci result of the letter S. The themes of this piece deal with notions of control and identity.

42

Mashups in contemporary pop culture primarily exist in the music domain, often in the form of a singer-songwriter performing a rap song on his acoustic guitar. I get it, though. The contrast of thematic content is intriguing. But I’m interested in what might happen in a more extreme version of this dichotomy. I would love to see what a TV therapist, a washed-up grunge rocker, and a former-pop icon would do under the guise of a thrash metal band.

Can someone make this happen?

44

Speaking of mashups, OpenAI’s machinelearning platform MuseNet, allows you to do just that. Pre-determined genres and songs generated from a deep neural network can generate 4-minute musical compositions of contrasting musical styles.

The AI discovers patterns of harmony, rhythm, and style by learning to predict the next token in hundreds of thousands of MIDI files.

45

Healing circles are often called ‘hocokah’ in the Lakota language, which means a sacred circle and is also the word for ‘altar.’ These circles foster deep listening and prohibit reactive confrontation.

This ‘fear hole’ draws from such themes of peacemaking, vulnerability, cathartic expression, but instead of human interaction, it encourages a tangible dialogue with our environment. This purge made me feel connected and seen, and it’s much cheaper than a therapist.

138

48

I’m trying to listen better in all aspects of my life right now—not solely at work. It’s not easy, and I have to work hard at it. But I know it’s critical in a time when the unknown feels so dark.

49

Arin, a Russian student, and dancer, currently living in Finland, responded to my openended prompt on constraints by dancing in her Helsinki apartment. Confined to the small space of her one-bedroom, she twists and contorts against confinement, lashing back and forth violently between the four walls. Her body eventually falls to the ground and out of frame, exhausted from battle.

She gets knocked down, but she’ll get up again.

50

If I had a device in my pocket that would emit a TV-studio laugh track, I think I could avoid a good deal of awkward encounters. (I need to look for that app.) Also, if a parallel universe existed where Quentin Tarantino never made “Reservoir Dogs” and instead directed multi-camera sitcoms, it might look like this.

139

51_ × Create an Instagram fan account for a topic with which you’re unfamiliar.

140

[@cool_carburetors_4u] → Instagram fan account 141

52_ ×

Hurt yourself.

142

[Mitch McConnell’s hand of death] → painted with blood 143

53_ ×

Make this shovel dance.

144

33 ̊ F

Turn it out, to the left Take it back now ya’ll 5 hops this time Right foot let’s stop Left foot let’s stomp Right foot again Left foot again Right foot let’s stomp Left foot let’s stomp

[doing the Cha-Cha Slide with a shovel] → video still 145

54_ ×

Steal something.

146

[stolen from @thriftstoreart who stole from @christian_nightmares] → art 147

55_ × You should feel fortunate that artist Nick Cave’s show, “Until,” is at a gallery down the street from your house. Go there now. After you walk past the big piece of beads in the exhibition, you’ll find yourself in a room with ribbons blown by industrial-sized fans.

Glance down on the floor and see if there are any loose ribbons. If so, pick them up and put them in your pocket.

148

[re-appropriated from Nick Cave’s exhibition, “Until”] → something 149

56_ × Do you remember last Tuesday afternoon when your heart rate spiked, and you felt a little dizzy, and then you went to WebMD, and that made it worse? It was after a long string of interruptions, a broken promise, several moments of paralyzing anxiety, and an outburst over a lost Amazon package. Stop for a second. Deep breaths.

150

[drawing 1,140 swirls] → mindful documentation 151

57_ \ CØLLABØRATE WITH AI. 1. Begin writing a short story 2. Let an AI text generator complete the rest

152

VISUAL FACISM

● I just argued with my wife over a rogue Waterpik. I was minding my own business, washing my hands, when I first noticed the imposter she had purchased—a cobalt blue and faux chrome looking thing perched by the sink.

It was annoyingly brazen; long, sleek, confident.

It almost taunted me with its presence as I reached for the hand towel, agitated by its arrival to such a sacred space.

Let me be clear; as a rule, there should only be soap, lotion, and a small mirror on the bathroom countertop. Anything else would suggest aesthetic anarchy, and I’m sorry, but I can’t have that in my house. I forbid it. Call me a visual fascist if you like, but there are conditions for admission on this granite slab. You can’t just show up like a mother-in-law on the doorstep.

Here, there’s a process, a strict, streamlined path to inclusion. So when this handy gadget with a logo that looked suspiciously like a French maid outfit walked into my house, all I could think was: maybe I’m imagining this. Maybe this is just a symbolic, expensive workaround, a cute modernist housewarming gift from a new friend.

If I could forget about the little blue bug and go about my day, I’d be all good.

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But I couldn’t. Instead, I started thinking.

What would happen if I just hid the pumptrack?

I’ve never been one for hosting house parties, and I usually do all of my socializing over email, but I could at least hide the oddity until I could get around to dismantling it. So I folded up the gunk-filled hose, careful to remove any empty inner tubes, and tucked it away inside a spare tank. I made it look like a moldy golf ball I had discovered on the coffee table. Then I went back to brushing my teeth. I felt no guilt, no remorse. I think I’ll call this: Waterpik Removal.

It’s not like I haven’t tried every trick in the book to avoid making friends with this troublesome intruder. I’ve had some success, and it’s even caused my wife to call me a hypocrite.

“You do take a real shower, don’t you?” she’ll ask, cautiously approaching the appliance to ask, “You do all this rinsing before you turn it on?”

“Well, yeah,” I’ll reply, half-grinning. “Of course I do. Who goes through a gallon of water, when you could just throw it in the sink?”

“Not me,” she’ll say, laughing. But I always laugh along with her. I think she is just looking for some validation that this water-thirsty contraption is a literal invasion of my privacy,

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VISUAL FACISM

and thus no longer a “part of my life.” She also claims I have the most ironic relationship with water. She says she’d love a shower, but she prefers to just jump into the pool for a dip when we go on vacation. It makes sense, but even I am not immune to the weirdness of our morning shower ritual. It’s true that the amount of water I use during the week can easily water a small suburban lawn. It’s also true that the vast majority of my entire body would fit comfortably in one sink-sized water glass. But I’m telling you, I don’t do this on purpose. I don’t want to be alone with that cobalt-colored friend. I want to keep it at bay. I want to be the calm mom and the reclusive housewife. I want to live out my romanticized fantasy of throwing off the restraints of societal expectations, and just relaxing by a pool with a book.

I know, that’s why I have this other waterfiltration system. I should really stick to just ignoring the little bugger. It’s better for the environment, and I don’t have to sacrifice part of my living space, or (like now) my time. ● [The AI thinks this is a good place to end the text.]

155

58_ ×

Create a visual score.

156

[interpreting “All Caps” by MFDOOM using Bomomo] → visual score 157

59_ × Use AI to generate speculative objects by combining two unrelated ideas from a text prompt.

158

[an armchair in the form of a doughnut] → AI-generated images from DALL•E 159

60_ × Hire someone to promote you.

160

[@lusiasmith, Fitness model from Fiverr] → promo video and stills 161

ON PROCESS 51

Are you a car freak? Do you spend your days and nights doom-scrolling Instagram looking for an account that celebrates the 1050 CFM Holley Dominator SP, only to come up empty-handed?

Well, look no further than Instagram’s hottest new automotive page: ‘cool_carburetors_4u.’ Because even highly-sensitive, precision instruments designed to blend fuel and air in the correct ratio across a dynamic operating range of internal combustion engines, deserves a fan club.

52

Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and I don’t appear to have much in common. He’s a career obstructionist who led the opposition against Obamacare, opposes more robust gun control measures, and fights continually against efforts to combat climate change. I couldn’t be further from him on the political spectrum. However, if you’ve seen a recent photo of the senator, you can’t help but notice a concerning discoloration on his right hand. I have a similar colored pigmentation that appears on my gums after flossing. As such, I thought it would be a lovely tribute to align our epithelial abnormalities by painting his hand with my mouth’s blood. We all bleed red, right?

53

Teaching the Cha-Cha Slide is rather challenging when your partner is a frigid and uncompromising tool.

54

If you drew a bad-ass portrait of a stoned Yeshua, at least charge more than $4.99 for your troubles. I would easily pay a cool hundo for this Spicoli masterpiece.

57

AI text generators like InferKit work by analyzing a vast dataset of text and predicting what letters and words tend to follow after one another.

Used to create a range of tools, from chatbots to playing chess and solving math equations, InferKit creates continuations of any text you give it, using an innovative neural network. The text it added to the introduction of my short story was both familiar and

162

strange—akin to a meandering conversation while on shrooms. Nevertheless, it’s both frightening and thrilling to envision how these highly autonomous systems will progress, particularly as their impacts are felt on humanity.

58

Mos Def called MF DOOM, “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.” In “All Caps,” a piano riff cascades over the beat, which is layered on top of a looping horn. DOOM’s idiosyncratic approach barrels on, external and internal multi-syllable rhymes continuing to the crescendo. Using an open-source program called Bomomo, I combined patterns from pre-determined brushes on top of one another, creating a gooey, thick composition much like the verse I vibed to as I worked.

59

DALL•E is an image generator by Elon Musk backed OpenAI. The trained software creates speculative images from a text prompt using a dataset of 12 billion images. The resulting images are a hybrid of real and imaginary visuals, often fantastical creations of anthropomorphized versions of animals and objects. DALL•E’s ability to create seemingly realistic objects from unrelated concepts (and specifically through a text input) distinguishes this AI platform from other neural networks.

60

@lusiasmith is a fitness model from Romania and a frequent contributor to Fiverr, the online marketplace for freelance services where we connected. In the content creator’s video, Lusia starts her workout with dumbbell curls but is quickly distracted by the conspicuous book resting in the foreground. After a few lackluster attempts at bicep toning, Lusia eventually surrenders to her curiosity.

Silently she sits, flipping through the pages, pausing and reflecting on each constraint-led provocation.

It’s clear she’s transfixed and doubtful that she plans to return to exercising anytime soon.

163

61_ × Make something a lot more complicated than it should be.

164

[applying for a new job] → hands bound to keyboard, mouse 165

62_ × Write an apology letter without apologizing.

166

[letter from child] → memory 167

63_ ×

Do something you’ll regret.

168

[telling everyone I can draw a straight line] → not a straight line 169

64_ ×

Request a constraint.

170

[“Leave this page blank and go for a (safe) walk”] → request from Olivier Lebrun 171

65_ ×

Seek commonalities.

172

[thumbs up from strangers] → 32 photos from Flickr 173

66_ × Make a really bad suggestion.

174

[mixing Axe shampoo in my coffee and convincing people it’s good] → campaign 175

67_ × Experiment with chance outcomes.

176

_Kevin Seefried looks a lot like moldy bread. _I ate a delicious Chalupa today while laughing at Adam Johnson. _I de-friended Larry Brock supporters yesterday while eating cold Gouda. _I found leftovers in my yard that resemble the mug shot of Klete Keller. _Richard Barnett is getting arrested on TV. [...]

[coding a random text generator] → The Insurrectionist Cookbook text generator 177

68_ × Make a constraint around the thing you use for these things.

178

ooo o o oo oo f fff f ff ff f. [studying my pencil] → photo 179

69_ ×

Duplicate.

180

[making a pattern of my mustache] → repeat digital pattern 181

70_ × Ask a stranger to write something about you in 24-hours.

182

COVER LETTER “Give me a fish and I will eat it for a day, teach me fishing and I can eat it for the rest of my life.”

I am exceedingly glad, enthusiastic, and optimistic about applying for the position of Assistant Professor of Graphic designing at the esteemed University of Arkansas. Choosing the appropriate profession like one that is perfectly compatible with your natural inclinations, temperament, and interests plays a pivotal role in providing one with the most sought after and desired feelings of fulfillment, accomplishment, and satisfaction. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that it’s the right key for attaining personal happiness.

So after some serious rumination, I have decided to pick up a career that brings out the best in me and acts as an impetus for me to work at my utmost potential.

I prefer teaching for several reasons. “Stand and deliver” is the thing I like most about teaching. I would like to mention here that during my school days, I used to adjust myself in front of the podium and deliver in front of a handful of students who were sitting in front of me. Even then, although I was a child, I used to enjoy the appreciation and encouragement that I earned from of my friends who were blessed with a stupendous intellect and were also capable of assimilating the information presented to them.

Moreover, I opine that teaching is the best and most effective way of inculcating knowledge, wisdom, patriotism, and many more qualities among the students Equipped with all these essential qualities, students can move forward and ensure their crucial role in transforming the fate of this world by making it a better and more tolerable place to live and thrive.

I would like to add further that according to the latest psychological findings, happiness lies in providing others with something they need the most. As I have mentioned earlier that teaching gives me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. Besides, I find it a respectable and wholesome profession and the best thing is that I feel content and satisfied fulfilling my role as a competent and capable teacher.

I have a good number of activities that I like to do in my leisure time. Firstly, I would like to tell you that I have always valued the wealth of health by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Besides, my profound interest in keeping healthy is vividly reflected in my love and desire for physical fitness.

That’s why I always squeeze out sometime to exercise to maintain a good and healthy physique.

Along with that, I like reading self improvement books, listening to music, and watching informative documentaries related to my profession.

To sum it all I would like to say that, with 3 years of professional experience as an instructor, I am perfectly skilled and trained at what I am going to offer. I can assert this with sheer certainty that I would leave no stone unturned in the attainment of the desired goals. I exhibit utter commitment and dedication to whatever I do and I believe that’s considered to be an indispensable quality in rising to the heights of success.

I am confident that my talents, skills, and motivation would be a valuable asset to your university.

I have enclosed a resume highlighting my education, experience, and some other skills that I have developed and monetized during all these years. I hope to be provided with an interview opportunity with you about the position of Assistant professor at the University of Arkansas.

I am exceedingly thankful to you for considering my application and I am looking forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Wishing you best of both worlds!

Ryan Slone

[paying someone to write my cover letter in 24 hours] → cover letter for a job 183

ON PROCESS 61

On January 18, 2021, I submitted a cover letter to a position at Columbus State University with the following: “Der to whom, Thdn you fjkj\.”

That’s it. I’ve yet to hear back.

63

When I was in high school, my best friend’s mom tried to convince me to read Dale Carnegie’s self-help classic book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People.” I’m still unsure why she singled me out. Anyway, I never read it. But had I taken her suggestion, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today, trying my best to convince others of my steady drawing hand. I’m certain there are other paths to attaining the acceptance of others, like, “when dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

Nevertheless, I’ll keep trying.

64

Olivier Lebrun (the designer, not the celebrity hairstylist) writes:

“Constraints? What a choice in all this mess :) We’re living in some quite strange times, and I would be so ashamed to give you another constraint.

Indeed, I want to help you go forward with your book, so how about ‘Constraint N°xx: Leave this page blank and go for a (safe) walk.’ I’m serious! Strollology is something, and for the French, I should mention the situationist dérive, too.”

Lucius Burckhardt, a sociologist, economist, and founder of strollology, believed in taking reflective walks and aesthetic interventions.

Similarly, the term “dérive” refers to an experimental practice from the “Theory of the Dérive” by Guy Debord. Debord defines the dérive as “a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.” It’s an unplanned journey through a landscape, in which participants “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.”

I took Olivier’s request and went for a nice, long hike in the nearby Ozark Mountains on a rainy day in January.

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66

After I gulped down a rich mix of Axe shampoo and Starbuck’s Pike Place blend, a moment of sheer panic washed over me. It began with a slight, uncontrollable cough that led to a weird stomach ache for a few minutes. Googling “is it okay to drink shampoo” did not help my mounting anxiety.

Thankfully, I was unable to convince anyone else to try my minty concoction. Lesson learned. Besides, there’s already a Tide pod challenge.

67

I made a random text generator that paired the U.S. Capitol insurrectionists with food.

In retrospect, it was a waste of time even to enter their names.

70

I’ve never been particularly good at marketing myself. I don’t post on social media that often, and I’m uncomfortable talking about past accomplishments. Naturally, it only made sense to hire someone to write my cover letter for a job opening. The only problem is that it sounds like it’s written for anyone, like, literally ANYONE. And honestly, I’m not sure talking about my “healthy physique” will give me an advantage.

185

71_ ×

Embarrass yourself.

186

[exercising until out of breath, then leaving a voicemail to school admin] → video 187

72_ × Wait 500 days to post again on social media.

188

[no new posts from 10.1.19 – 2.12.21] → Instagram post 189

73_ ×

Make it float.

190

[only drop shadows] → collage 191

74_ × Make something from 10 random words.

192

[overlaying the top-Googled image from 10 random words] → poster 193

75_ × Find a radically confined space that severely restricts you—a closet, the inside of a big cardboard box, the room under a stairwell or a table, etc.

Spend an amount of time there that is uncomfortable. Spend this time on something useful.

Push it to a limit that you decide. After finishing, enjoy the freedom and vastness of the space that you can use otherwise. Try to describe your experience afterward.

194

[doing what Oliver Klimpel told me to do] → texting my wife from under the bed 195

76_ + WRITE A FIVEYEAR PLAN IN FIVE MINUTES 196

FIVE-FIVE

● And go! I want you to know that I’m not editing this at all so it is what it is. In five years, I want to be starving. I don’t want to be full. I’d like to crawling around on the carpet, looking for crumbs and morsels–anything of sustenance. I want work that is fulfilling. I want to make work that matters and that surprises me. I want to wake up and make shit and move people and be in constant disbelief that i get to do what I do. I want to write and make and spit and dance and jump and run and create. I don’t know if I want safety. I think I thrive on the walls closing in on me. How can I keeping eating?

197

77_ × Create a collaborative activity that challenges your patience.

198

[counting all 50,995 squares in this blanket with my son] → blanket 199

78_ × Use your ears. Make it hurry. 101 layers.

200

[from Mitch Goldstein’s ‘Obstructions Workshop’] → ear-print artifact 201

79_ × Study the motion of your motion.

202

[73 openings and closings] → drawing by door 203

80_ × Put your thing down, flip it, and reverse it.

204

[running backwards until falling down or stopping] → video 205

ON PROCESS 71

Online school is hard. That’s not a groundbreaking statement by any means, but it’s even more challenging when your son has ADHD. In late February, I found myself struggling to help him survive in online school after days of minimal teacher interaction. Like any concerned parent, I tried to reach out to his teachers but to no avail. So I called the school administration and left a very confusing voicemail. I also did it after cycling for one-hour, so I was really out of breath. Oh, and for some reason, I decided that I must somehow weave in Creed lyrics into the voicemail.

72

I’m not an avid social media poster. I’m much more of a lurker. Nevertheless, waiting 500 days between posts was somewhat excruciating.

73

Graphic designers are often advised not to use drop shadows in layout. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s one of many Modernist myths that’s people seem to cling to unknowingly. Or perhaps it’s just how I was taught. In any case, I thought it would be fun to embrace this no-no by going all-in on drop shadows.

74

The word randomizer spit out a slew of juicy words: wait, ranch, therapist, compass, patient, sectional, permanent, mail, unknown, and say.

75

Oliver Klimpel emailed me instructions on a Friday evening. By the next morning, I found myself stuck underneath my son’s twin-bed, staring at the crumbs of Cheez-it’s in the carpet and pondering how insensitive I had been earlier to my wife. I stayed there for a good hour or so, studying the bottom of the box spring, reciting breathing exercises, and meditating on how I could be a better person.

76

Please don’t hold me to any of this.

206

77

Counting all the squares with a nine-yearold was taxing, but we managed to make it a fun, collaborative experience. It was like playing a board game as we raced to see who could finish their section of the blanket first.

78

Mitch Goldstein ‘Obstructions Workshop’ (shout-out to Lars von Trier) left me with a purple ear and blurry vision. With a water-soluble marker, I colored my ear and made multiple prints. Then, as quickly as I could manage, I layered 101 versions of the print on top of each other in Photoshop. My only mistake was forgetting to wash my ear and getting strange looks at the grocery store.

80

I only ran a quarter-mile before falling.

207

81_ × Do something that frightens you.

208

���� ���� ���� ���� [stealing bananas from Walmart] → evidence 209

82_ × Go outside and find a piece of trash. Make it beautiful.

210

[old McDonald’s receipt found in a parking lot] → butterfly origami 211

83_ × Count the current number of open windows on your computer, then multiply by the items of clothes you’re wearing.

Identify the first letter of that sum. Then, choose something nearby that also begins with the same letter.

212

[twenty-one + tape] → scenes of tape from a film database 213

84_ × Close your eyes and freestyle.

214

[drawing squiggles while scrolling through document blindfolded] → see page 55 215

85_ × Pretend like you feel good until you no longer do.

216

[smiling non-stop for 8 minutes, 28 seconds] → video 217

86_ ×

Fuck off a bit at work.

218

[covering my computer screen while working] → photo 219

87_ × Write a ‘texte à démarreur’ or ‘kick-start’.

220

I remember pressing on the tip of your thumb and watching the skin depress like a bloated water balloon.

I remember mason jars of nails and teeth-whistling.

I remember green shag, morning smoke, Members Only on a barstool, and a frostbit nose.

I remember a caramel Buick sitting out front.

I remember the fall and mom’s desperate chase as you were wheeled away.

[eliciting a string of dormant memories about my grandfather] → poem 221

88_ × Open a nearby book and turn to page 43. Create an alternative narrative from the words on that page.

222

[“Artifact-driven design...”] → statement 223

89_ × Make a meme. Make it relatable. Make it a nightmare.

224

[Ok, ummm...can you see my screen?] → work meme 225

90_ ×

Make a lil’ jokey joke.

226

[Matt Monk] → � 227

ON PROCESS 81

This is not something I should put in the book, but I’m going to anyhow. On Saturday, February 27th, at 2:37 pm, I visited the Walmart Neighborhood Market on Pauleen Whitaker Drive in Rogers, Arkansas. I bought some Lay’s potato chips, sour cream and onion-flavored dip, and stole seven bananas. I did not get caught, but it did frighten me.

82

There’s always a lot of trash near the parking lot of a bank near my house. There are flower beds with small brown rocks that flank the perimeter, and the bank itself is centered in the middle of a chain restaurant orgy. The receipt I picked up this day was one of many trapped between the landscape rocks and the pruned azalea bushes.

It was for a small coffee.

85

Have you ever tried to hold a smile for an excruciatingly long time? Physiologically, a lot happens that I wasn’t aware of. First, your cheek muscles begin to spasm. That’s expected to some degree, but my eyes started to flex and flutter, too.

Then they watered. After that, my mouth got really dry, and I wanted nothing more than to droop my face and let my mouth fall open.

86

Thankfully, I ended up writing a bunch of gobbledegook, but nothing was inadvertently sent in an email or text message. The fear of not knowing in this scenario was palpable.

87

The “I remember...” kick-start is an Oulipo literary technique designed to elicit dormant memories. My grandfather died when I was 15 years old, but his imprint on my life remains clear and lucid.

88

“Artifact-driven design changed people in 1998 because most educators were different and not perfect ok.”

228

89

Rudy. Dripping hair dye. Zoom technical difficulties. Literal nightmare fuel.

90

I’m sure this joke is not new.

229

91_ ×

Break some rules.

230

[stretching and distorting type] → book cover 231

92_ ■ WHAT DID YØUR CØNTENT EDITØR ASK? 232

INTERVIEW

Why the title, “Turn This Leaf Into a Weapon.”

Well, a few reasons, I suppose. For one, I think it’s strange and slightly ambiguous, a mood I hope to evoke in some of these provocations.

But maybe more importantly is that it suggests something that on the surface seems unlikely, or perhaps even unattainable. There’s an element of absurdity in the prompt that I celebrate, much akin to when I drink Axe shampoo and try to convince people it’s a good idea. The unknowing of everything is something I want to embrace. * Why 100?

Doing 100 of these forced me into a near-daily routine of exploration that pushed me well outside the confines of comfortability. Though the number is somewhat arbitrary, the bulk of effort required led to an investigation that considered prompts across a spectrum of constraints—from the highly prescriptive to the more open-ended. I’m not sure I could’ve explored this range had it been limited in scope. There’s

233

also something to say about the ritual of doing something daily or for an extended period. I found myself incorporating many of these into the routines of how I went about my day instead of scheduling work time. * Why the random assortment of paper?

It’s a continuation of the prompts but extended to the materiality of the book. I asked a printer to choose the paper, and the colored Poptone and textural Speckletone from French Paper Co. was their recommendation. They’ve randomly selected an assortment of colors, too. In that regard, I’m forfeiting control by allowing someone else to answer the set of constraints. I’m sure they probably chose it for its practicality. I know it’s a sheet they have in stock, and these might be colors that not many people want. I’m speculating, though. I like the unpredictable pops of color and the moments of surprise and joy.

234

INTERVIEW

* How does knowing our limitations free us?

There’s something quite liberating about acknowledging that which we do not know and embracing that. I also think that part of freely moving around in a personal problem space requires the creative agent to be vulnerable and not afraid to try hard or unfamiliar things.

I’m aware of how I want to be perceived by my neighbors, so dancing in my front yard with a shovel to the cha-cha, was extremely frightening.

Understanding where your comfort lies and what your limitations may be is critical to getting to the heart of some cathartic exploration.

Restraining myself in these often performative pieces allowed the act itself to be noteworthy.

I felt present and grateful for the privilege of engaging in a design space that questions our roles of working.

235

* Does the role of affordance play a role in provocation??

A keyboard, for instance, affords the ability to be tapped on. People instinctively understand how this affordance works because keyboards have buttons and are ergonomic to our hands and fingers. When the keyboard is flipped upside down and used as a pseudo-guitar however, that affordance is compromised. The relationship between the person and the object changes, thus creating a new, often provocative relationship. This pursuit of anti-affordance can elicit unexpected experiences. * How does one determine the elements of constraint?

I look to the Danish designers and scholars Michael Mose Biskjaer and Kim Halskov and their classification of creative constraints. They categorize constraints as intrinsic (given by the

236

INTERVIEW

material, fixed properties, etc.), imposed (various requirements and demands emerging from the given context), and self-imposed constraints (the agent’s own voluntary choices such as a director’s decision to shoot a contemporary movie in black and white). Outside of these parameters, there’s also a spectrum of specificity that I shift back and forth on.

From sequential, rule-based parameters on one side to open-ended, vague directives on the other, I’m operating on both ends and in-between.

Ultimately for those self-imposed constraints, I’m interested in those prompts that afforded me the opportunity to confront my vulnerabilities. * How does chance come into play?

Each possible meandering decision is chance, however constrained the set of parameters.

The conceptual distance between intention and result is often unseen. New relationships and conditions emerge as a result of impulse.

237

* What is the pragmatic outcome of impractical methods in design education?

“Design Futures,” the briefing papers released

by AIGA in 2018, anticipates a complex future where design solutions must be increasingly open-ended to accommodate many layers of uncertainty. As we’ve already witnessed in 2020, being adaptive to life’s unpredictable constraints is critical. Design methodologies with predictable outcomes will not suffice. Instead, design educators can encourage students to embrace limitations, to grapple with the complexities of wicked problems through unconventional, impractical methodologies. Constraints are one way to do that—by directing us away from predictable patterns toward ideas and processes that truly resonate. * What is the role of the author?

In this space I exist as Author. This is a place I can exercise some kind of agency where there

238

INTERVIEW

has traditionally been none. (Rock, ‘96). Here, there is no discipline for tardiness, no time clock, no dress code. Here is a spatula and a bowl of dirt. What will I make of this? Take these letters and few minutes before bedtime. What will I build? I’m free to try anything. *

What is the connection of constraints to design?

The idea of constraints to a designer is the equivalent of air to everyone else; they’re simply so much a part of our day to day life that they often go unnoticed. From the parameters of time in a project scope to material conditions to self-imposed stylistic limitations, designers are constantly grappling with a multitude of these conditions. Control is embedded in design. To the average person, a thing is a thing. But to a designer, a thing can always be better.

A phone can be more ergonomic. A book can be more engaging, an app more compelling to its audience. How much we choose to embrace that aspect of control is up to us.

239

93_ ×

Multi-task with music.

240

[playing drums while drawing objects on command] → study on paper 241

94_ × Find a group of people.

Make a note of the ninth person you speak to. What are they wearing? Choose an article of their clothing and promote it.

242

[talking to a 7-month-old named Otto] → ad for clothing line 243

95_ ×

See it upside down.

244

[driving drunk, but only in my driveway] → video 245

96_ ×

Decorate.

246

[using all the border styles] → frames 247

97_ ×

Look closer.

248

[surface of Mt. Sharp, Mars, or Cheetoh dust enlarged to 700%?] → photo 249

98_ × Get in your car. Turn on the radio. Who’s singing?

Do you recognize them?

Draw 50 things.

250

[50 noses of Susanna Hoffs] → drawing 251

99_ × If this book were a something else, what would it look like?

252

[trying to explain this book to someone who does renderings] → inaccurate 253

100_ ×

Is it finished?

254

????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????? [wondering what is next] → “Oblique Strategies” question 255

101_ × Let’s cheat. You do one.

Make it joyful. Make it weird.

Make it you.

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[draw, glue, spit, or whatever and email me your response] → ryan.slone@vcfa.edu 257

ON PROCESS 91

Self-referential entry goes here.

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I held a pen in one hand and steadied paper on a djembe drum in the other. As I played, my son would should out commands, objects of which I would draw. The dots are a result of hand-drumming.

As you might expect, poop was one prompt, along with strawberry and cat.

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Otto is a very stylish 7-month-old. He laughed and swung outside in a tree-swing as I spoke to him and his parents at a party. I thought his sweatshirt looked like something you might find in a small L.A. boutique. So I pretended it was.

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I got drunk one night after a lot of Vodka LaCroix and Shiner. Driving back and forth in my driveway was pretty fun but a little precarious, too.

It took a surprising amount of coordination to back up, turn around and get in and out of the garage without inadvertently running over a skateboard or rogue basketball.

97

It really could be either.

98

2 years ago, Zailna Hawkan posted on Quora, a response to the question, “What is Manic Monday?” They wrote: “Manic Monday is referring to the song in which it says, ‘Just another manic Monday, I wish it was Sunday.’ So in another words this person enjoyed her weekend and doesn’t like the weekday. Most of all Monday. As everyone hates mondays. Manic monday has so relation to mania or manic episodes associated with bi-polar disorder.

They are using the word Manic inappropriately as with ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ or any other non-PC way of saying it is a frustrating and event filled day.”

This post received 6.6K views, and sadly, only 1 upvote.

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99

I tried to explain the premise of this book to someone I don’t know. I wanted to see how it might translate to a physical space. This was their rendering. Embrace the Journey at Constraint World!

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This is ___ ___, beautiful friend. This is ___ ___, my only friend, ___ ___.

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and thank you the way my father one time came back in a dream by plucking the two cables beneath my chin like a bass fiddle’s strings and played me until I woke singing, no kidding, singing, smiling, thank you, thank you, stumbling into the garden where the Juneberry’s flowers had burst open like the bells of French horns, the lily my mother and I planted oozed into the air, the bazillion ants labored in their earthen workshops below, the collard greens waved in the wind like the sails of ships, and the wasps swam in the mint bloom’s viscous swill; and you, again you, for hanging tight, dear friend.

I know I can be long-winded sometimes.

I want so badly to rub the sponge of gratitude over every last thing, including you, which, yes, awkward, the suds in your ear and armpit, the little sparkling gems slipping into your eye. Soon it will be over.

“Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude”

by Ross Gay ■

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