Design in the age of mechanical reproduction
By: Mane Tatulyan
Tags: Design, Future, UX, Technology, Design Systems

Design in the age of mechanical reproduction

There is no doubt that we live in the golden age of liberation. Things freed from their idea are condemned to infinite reproduction, and as Baudrillard would say, “to the infinite xerox of non-signification”. Expelled from their orbit, the particles are released from their center and are infinitely reproducible for viral propagation and circulation. When Walter Benjamin analyzed the work of art in the era of technical reproduction, he was marking how the irruption of technology was affecting the essence of originality in the field of art. Benjamin identified “aura” with singularity, in other words, an unrepeatable experience; in his own words, “in the age of the technical reproduction of the work of art, what atrophies is its aura. The process is symptomatic; its significance points above the artistic sphere. According to a general formulation: the reproductive technique dissociates what is reproduced from the sphere of tradition”. What Benjamin had already seen in the field of art was precisely the symptom of this anomaly, since technique enables radical liberation and automatic reproduction of the world and all its infinite possibilities.

When technique absorbed design, the humanity of its practice was significantly emptied, not only in the nature of its practice but also in its orientation.

For the new order of design, we speak of users instead of humans, of templates instead of singularity, of data analysis instead of empathy with humans, of trends instead of transcendence, of uploading instead of contributing, of downloading instead of learning, of call to action instead of call to think, digital high definition instead of real-world high definition, interface instead of face-to-face, artificial intelligence instead of human reason, of virtual reality instead of real reality, of user-centered instead of anthropocentric, and so on. Everything is computerized, everything is quantified (data, percentages, views, clicks, likes, searches, interactions). In the digital marketing interface, the human being is a user who experiences and interacts with a code, a normalized backend based on numbers and pixels. The magical effect of the machine first made the man disappear and, ergo, the designer.

The original discourse of the technological revolution promised that “the machine will only replace the mechanical jobs of humans”, but as we see, it has also reached the creative and artistic jobs as well. Today the designer seems to be, in essence, an endangered species; now we are even talking about free logo-generators, that is, the replacement of creative human vision with a creative algorithmic program.

Everywhere: free design tools, templates, mockups, Wix tells us “create the website you’ve always dreamed of”. This design superabundance, this sudden creative boom, arises from one of the many achievements of this positive society: the democratization of creative tools. The rise of the Adobe empire prompted the development of the digital manufacturing ecosystem, which combined with the virality of social media and the digital community (Instagram, Behance, Dribbble), became extremely easy for anyone with a basic understanding of the software to produce material.

As unlike engineers or architects, designers do not need any kind of qualification for their exercise, the production becomes unlimited, even uncontrollable, especially with the reproduction in the media. There is no doubt that design has become a prosthesis of the capitalist industrial production system, that is, a form-making technique at the service of market excrescence, with its updated versions, new features, digital marketing, user interfaces, obsolete trends (very different from the transcendental and objective design of the 50s), free templates, among others. So, in addition to suffering from visual pollution, with the democratization of design and its infinite reproduction on the networks, we now have digital pollution, with a type of dioxide that is invisible, essentially harmless: everywhere, posters, logos and cool designs, endless news feeds, adds and suggestions, proliferation of repost accounts, an so on, cause a visual atrophy to the point where we become insensitive to its effects.

As happened with the destiny of Art, design ends up disappearing because it is everywhere.

Now, the categorical imperative of environmentalism (so cool nowadays) indicates that an environmental responsibility towards our surroundings is necessary, but why does no one mention a creative responsibility, in order to preserve visual health or end the planned obsolescence of our objects? The industrial system is a constant generator of obsolete forms, as Baudrillard wrote, “in all previous civilizations, were objects that survived generations of human beings; Today, conversely, we are the ones who observe them being born and dying”. In fact, there is a hidden metaphysical quality in the essence of creativity and it is precisely the quality of surviving time. There is no doubt that technological proliferation has induced a mutation in the ecology of the human species since this whole panorama of non-living forms (objects, products, gadgets, machines, devices) has become as natural as an ecosystem; and just as we try to preserve the natural environment, we should also be responsible with our new industrial and technological environment and, in addition, preserve our human qualities as part of that natural environment.

And above all, before man’s natural creativity is replaced by software calculations, we need to preserve our essential humanistic foundations. The essence is that which, despite everything, does not change; that element that represents a piece of certainty in a changing world.