Where We Went Wrong
Thoughts on modernism, brutalism, and a number of other useless “isms”
Where We Went Wrong
Thoughts on modernism, brutalism, and a number of other useless “isms”
Where We Went Wrong - Thoughts on modernism, brutalism, and a number of other useless “isms” is an excerpt from my MDes thesis that was used for the production of a body of visual collage work responding to the main themes within the text. Photographs taken documenting urban development projects within the city of Toronto during my studies were digitally reworked, output in black and white to paper, and remixed through cutting and pasting into new configurations. The new relationships resulting from the exercise aided in visualizing the ideological collapse of the Modernist movement as expressed through the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development project in St. Louis. The process of photographing public space and infrastructure, re-mediating the visual content in numerous forms of design, and responding to the work in textual form became the process for the body of work and thesis produced through my post-graduate studies.
The form of the printed and bound book became the media of choice within my studies as a final presentation for the visual work. This reinterpreted textual excerpt follows the same basic operating principle of output—the final work is expressed in the form of a saddle-stitched book. The pages were output at a service bureau, stapled by hand, and trimmed with the use of an industrial cutter at a local print shop. The physical artifact was again re-mediated through the use of photography whereby the work was reflected upon in an online article, published on June 16, 2022.
The final article can be read on Medium.