Design as a Conversation

Design as a conversation, to me, means interacting with the audience, viewers, or listeners, just like any other conversation. Without interaction or response, there isn't a conversation.  A good conversation, as I've learned from my peers who have experienced good conversations before, might include learning something new and interesting, finding out different perspectives of ideas, and possibly create connections of joy, similarities, and future growth.

I realized out of the Yoko Ono's pieces that design is another form of conversation. Some of her art pieces required audience participation, similar to a verbal conversation between two subjects. Her art needed participation from the viewers for her art to carry on the conversation she is trying to have. When anything designed receives reaction or feedback from others, a conversation was there, verbal or mental. Even simple gestures or communicative faces that expresses ones feelings toward a design can feed the conversation between human beings and the design, and possibly back to other humans around. It wasn't until now that I realized what I've been so passionate about for the last thirteen years also is considered using design as the form of communication, with music as my medium.

To connect my musical ideas with the audience and hopefully receive positive reactions, or even constructive criticism, I use turntables as a brush and I attempt to paint a representational picture of a good party using music as my paint. Since every party is different, these representational attempts always turn out to look abstract; I really let the brush do its own painting. As the party carries on into the night, I become disconnected to the turntables because the crowd becomes the artist. It's that connection between me playing music, the audience interacting to it by dancing or standing, and me feeding off their energy; similar to what Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga were doing when they performed “The Sun is Down”.

Design as a conversation essentially means a back and forth interaction between human and design; whether its a physical participation or a mental thought about the design, even a spark of an idea or question, would technically be a conversation, a back and forth exchange of ideas. The design will always be talking, its up to us viewers to carry on the conversation.