A self-conscious experiment
Any intellectual endeavor is bound to be more interesting if it is unsure of itself. A supremely confident effort will only reach as far as necessary to confirm its assumptions; it will go no further, and it will not question its reasons for existing. By contrast, an insecure process will act out its doubt by exploring, looking for the ways in which it may prove to be incorrect or incomplete or even irrelevant. Instead of searching for tautologies that prove its own effectiveness, it will seek out every plausible way to be discredited and dissect them, one by one.
It’s an exercise in discomfort, but one which can be fruitful if you’re persistent.
I was intentionally abstract about the purpose and methods at work on this site when I started it, knowing that if I prescribed a path from the beginning it would be easier but less engaging. Now, a little more than a month later, some of that purpose is coming into relief – a few edges of a path that is still being carved. This act of tracking and responding to books – collecting the texts that strike me as holding some truth – is an attempt to sketch out the foundations of a personal critical approach, the first step of which is to define the shape of my own beliefs; from there, I can better explore and question them.
The critical approach questions: and it questions its own assumptions as part of a refusal to take anything unquestioned. There are no beliefs – not of a golden age, nor of transparent communication – that can stand free of these questions and doubts. In this way the critical approach will always live on, never quite satisfied. It is coloured by dissatisfaction, even melancholy: it lives in the contexts with which it finds itself, but questions the terms of those contexts and is often unhappy with them. Kinross, Unjustified Texts (361)
So, the process I now find myself involved in is one of definition (seeking out the source of my beliefs in the books I’ve read and reread) and simultaneous questioning (following these beliefs from book to book to see if they become clearer or merely dilute, turning them inside out as they pass through different writers) all the while paying attention to the language itself, cognizant (and accepting) of my prejudice for ideas that are articulated with beautiful prose.
I am also beginning to think more clearly about the relationship between design and criticism, whether it be of a criticism that itself addresses design, or of a critical approach that is communicated through design. When developing any critical method, you must consider why it needs to exist in the first place: what are we to learn from it? How will it reshape what we already know (or think we know)? Who does it benefit?
The reproduction and distribution of text is part of the life-blood of social-critical dialogue. The argument for openness and clarity in typography is made, most importantly, for this reason. Kinross, Unjustified Texts (362)
This part of the path is still woody and overgrown, but I can just make out an opening ahead: if typography is the means by which criticism is distributed, then criticism owes much of its existence to typography. And typography – when executed in such a way as to serve the text and not compete with it – is a participant in that criticism. It is the parameters of that participation that I am keenly interested in.
That, it seems, is the direction I’m headed; and I’m happy to say, I don’t know where I’ll be when I get there.
