with love, lissitzky
Lissitzky is not only proficient in his writing of his age, he also sets forth a theory for the future. He builds an equation of sorts that we, having read of his time and the time between then and now, can see proven correct. He states that there is no evolution of the inventions we discover in society, whether it be in art/design or other industries. Instead he insists there is a cycle of materialism and dematerialization. If you think of it in the context of our society as compared to his, now these once newfangled printed books are being replaced with digital matter. One could say that we are experiencing the dematerialization part of the cycle, where plastic is the new, less frivolous paper but I would interject that we have, in fact, passed that period. I think plastics and this digital matter that we case so sweetly in solid chemical compounds (and of course, more plastic) have already come into full fledge materialism. The invention of the computer has undergone what Lissitzky expresses as,
“With the passage of time different variations
of the same theme are composed around the
invention, sometimes more sharpened,
sometimes more flattened, but seldom is
the original power attained.”
We have seen the computer sharpened, we have even quite literally seen it flattened. Each with it’s own awe inspiring feature, variations have come and gone but nothing has had the impact of the original invention.
So what is next, what is the next large thud of innovation? To those of us that still treasure the feeling of a good book, dog earred from love in our hands, this all seems like catastrophe. For where we are headed is quite a bit like the time just before Lizzitsky, a time where only the rich and privileged actually have libraries of printed books. Not because so few people lack the technology to make them, but because the technology exists to make them irrelevant. So if the printers and the photographers made the paintings rare and collectable, do the web designers and programmers make the prints and tangible designs rare and collectable? If so what is the new form of creative expression?
In our society the fine artists are now the “starving artists,” and the designers have learned to make practical use of their creative genius. We make very little that is pretty for pretty’s sake. So what is the next step? And how will our generation adapt to this trend before we become irrelevant as well? What will “Our Book” be?