Abstract
Designing is something that is midway between doing and doing nothing, an activity that programmatically goes beyond the confines separating negotium and otium. It is a third way that constantly mediates between the practices of the two hemispheres, between the interior and the exterior, the personal and professional or public. Having done, doing less, or doing other, are all ways of inhabiting this confine. Starting from this short premise, this text focuses its attention on the multifaceted role of the designer, analysing all the above-mentioned ways of practicing it and which are found within the design and art context, in different historical periods and in different movements that tend to crop up in cycles and which frequently co-exist as stages in a journey that, in spite of numerous attempts at rationalization, are not fixed in a single method, once and for all.
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Notes
- 1.
On this subject, see: Camillini, G. and Pierini, J. (Eds.) 2018. ‘Lavoro/Work’. Progetto Grafico. No. 33. Milan; Aiap Edizioni.
- 2.
“The dematerialization of art”, written by Lucy R. Lippard in 1967 and published for the first time in Art International, 12:2 (February 1968), pp. 31–36.
- 3.
(ca. 1287–1347) English Franciscan friar and mediaeval philosopher to whom the maxim Ockham’s razor, the method at the basis of scientific thought is attributed. One of his most famous quote: “Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora” “It is pointless to do with more what can be done with fewer” (McGrade 1974 e Ghisalberti 1991, 19).
- 4.
Hide The Pain Harold, also known simply as “Harold” or “Maurice”, is the nickname used for a model from stock photos and image banks. Famous thanks to his particular expression that makes him look as though he is trying to cover up some illness, which earned him the nickname “hide the pain”, and is identical in any situation he is used to interpret. Arató András, the real name of Harold, is a Hungarian engineer who took the selfie during a Turkish holiday in 2010, and then uploaded it to an online community. It didn’t take long for the selfie to appear on Facepunch before quickly going on to become one of the most shared memes on the web (Hooton 2017).
- 5.
In Roman times, the feria was a day dedicated to public and private worship, a day on which it was prohibited to convene comitia. With the advent of Christianity, the term was used to indicate the days of the week (excluding Saturday and Sunday) dedicated to the celebration of a saint.
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Camillini, G., Pierini, J. (2020). Doing, Having Done, Doing Less, Doing Nothing. In: Cicalò, E. (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Image and Imagination. IMG 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1140. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41018-6_34
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