SOT3 Mapping Project: Where is the discipline heading and in what contexts are graphic designers working?
N Silas Munro, Terry Stone, Chris Vice, Florencio Zavala
We organize information on maps in order to see our knowledge in a new way. As a result, maps suggest explanations; and while explanations reassure us, they also inspire us to ask more questions, consider other possibilities.
—Peter Turchi, Maps of the Imagination
As the discipline of graphic design becomes more “media agnostic” we can no longer chart it's territories solely by the products of its practice. We must define the ever-“slippaging” borders of graphic design by the ideas and methodologies of its practitioners. What is depicted is an expanded, but ruptured field in constant flux. One that is loosely joined together by a wider definition of [graphic] “design as a conceptual operation.”
—N Silas Munro
For the duration of Schools of Thoughts 3 all conference attendees are invited to collaborate in creating a map of graphic design today. This map will attempt to locate graphic design at this very moment while considering what constitutes or delineates the current field and practice and in what direction it might be heading (or not). In Art Center cafeteria will be a magnetized chalkboard where you can write, draw, deviate, derive, dérive, pinpoint, and post. This collective activity will drive this work-in-progress (to wherever it ends). As we progress, we will be recording the procession of the map with periodic photographic documentation in order to preserve this—your most spontaneous form of scholarship.
