Dilemma of Creativity (Part III) - []2010-10-14
But let us slow down and look back: the complete integration of the virtual and real world, will it be our very future? You may find a similar chapter in our history. One day in February of 1909, the Italian writer and poet Filippo Marinetti in his article “Manifeste du futurism” on Le Figaro, declared the modern industrial civilization and its science and technology could thoroughly change our traditional perception of time and space. He advocated in the future, the theme of literature and art should be “speed, power, competition, and modernity “. Nevertheless, human beings still have not redeemed the environmental damages caused by the industrialization process so far. The futurists’ fanaticism and their aegis for fascism made them doomed to be ephemeral. The futurism didn’t bring us to the future, but neither the machines nor the progress of the modernization has been put to a halt. Compared with it, the arrival of the digital era seemed to keep a low profile. It comes without manifestoes or parades, but has been changing our lifestyle dramatically.
Having experienced the pain of disillusion of the late 90s’ “New Economy” of last century, we should look upon the technology and future more rationally. However, new myths are still being constantly produced. It is not the patent only for digital era, but the doom of capitalism. Every day, new internet services are provided, new promotion and entertainment platforms are created, new servers are installed to satisfy the soaring requirement of page-view; investment needs to be increased, and enterprises demand to join the market. Nevertheless, we should ask ourselves how many of those ideas are sustainable, and how many inventions of them are truly required? After downloading the free games to the phone, do we launch them for a second time? Should we use the video for each phone call? Won’t we feel much easier when the video camera isn’t in operation? Will the SNS (Social Networking Services) replace the traditional ways of social intercourse? Would we like to court one another in the virtual Starbucks Café? Will the paper books disappear? Will micro-blogs take place of the role of journalists and help us to come closer to the truth? Can the digital product placement marketing attract the benumbed consumers? Do we like to have our lives surrounded by screens and interfaces? Do we designers have no choice but to become accomplices in worship of consumerism?
Young creative individuals and designers keep on questioning themselves with these doubts. It seems that we are trapped in a dilemma: on one hand, we are celebrating the rich availability of new media and technologies; on the other hand, we wish to help all of us return to ourselves, and the world to itself. Franz Kafka had already demonstrated the terror of alienation caused by modernity to us in his The Metamorphosis. If we don’t rethink it profoundly, the digital civilization might even aggravate the alienation: in Kafka’s time, transforming into a monstrous insect would be exposed to everyone; but today, when we surf the internet, what is hiding behind an avatar could just be anything. Love, sincerity and equality… The pursuit of those universal values is yet the true motivation of the innovations.
DFI, positioning itself as a design school of tomorrow, encourages its students to reflect the meaning of creativity and the responsibilities of a designer. Embracing the future, we believe that creativity can make our lives better, but we shall always remind ourselves who we are and where we go, and the answers will guide us to constantly adjust our heading directions. Like the destiny of Prometheus, carrying kindling and bearing hardship, wandering between optimism and pessimism – perhaps this is the destiny of all creative individuals.
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