Semi Permanent

On April 4 & 5 I attended the "Semi-Permanent" Design Conference at Darling Harbour. There are a lot of comments I could make on what I gained from attending, but the main point that relate to my studies in the Digital Design Studio class was related to:

• The different perspectives and attitudes people in the design, art and journalism industries have..
  

It sounds vague, but after sitting through two days of career wisdom and advice on what to do and what not to do both creatively and in business, hearing about and witnessing some of the amazing things people in the industry are creating and getting loads of free goodies - - my brain was pretty overloaded. What works well for someone doesn't necessarily work well for everyone, so the advice we received from various successful entrepreneurs was more interesting to me than fundamental to my design experience.

The central message I took out of the experience was all about perspective. As a designer or an artist or even as a writer or a journalist you have an opportunity to express messages or themes in ways that really make people think and consider them seriously. In our technology saturated society we've become numb to some of the truly beautiful (and truly ugly) things that take place in the world, and as a result we begin to ignore them. We see the news on TV; countless images of the depths of depravity in human nature -- all packaged up and thrown at us, commented on by a monotone news reader. Then, a minute later, something new, different; replacing what came before. Impact - absorb - ignore.

Expressive art forms can take the same issue or situation that we've seen on the news or maybe an issue we've never even considered before or didn't know about -- and really force us to reflect and think. With this kind of visual communication it seems a greater impact can be made through a smaller audience.

Mostly this perspective came out of Semi-Permanent's speaker Spencer Platt - a photojournalist from New York. He spoke about the impact of single images and about all his experiences in remote and war-torn parts of the world. For me, he was definitely the best speaker there, and I got the most out of what he had to say (and his amazing photographs).

The point I'm making is that I've never really thought about art in this way before, which is bizarre because now I guess I feel that being able to have this impact as an artist or a designer is what art is truly about. This gives me a lot more to think about with my topics, my visual language and what I really want to be saying when I display an image or write something.

It's very deep to have this awareness that as a designer (or as an artist or a writer) I can have the power to affect other people's view of the world.