Was reading Logic and Emotion while thinking about my own painting of “Is Google God?“. David Armano works at Digitas, a firm I have some experience with though IBM.  David brings up a point about the work of two architects and how they approach the results of  their creations -  I have often thought about with my own work:

“…Are we really so sure that conversations can’t and shouldn’t be “designed”?  Does design = control?  What would the developers/designers of Twitter say about their application which has evolved into something that goes beyond answering “What are you doing?”.  Are they not designers because their application is used in ways that maybe were not predicted?  Sure baking soda can be used to keep refrigerators smelling fresh, which was maybe not the original intent—but somebody conceived, invented and created baking soda. 

Each and every “2.0” application is architected, designed and developed.  Many of these digital experiences facilitate dialogue which manifests itself in different ways.  We the people, the users, the consumers, co-creators and mashers then become the “children” who decide how we want to play and socialize.  We do what comes natural.  But that doesn’t mean our playground was never designed in the first place—it was, we just do what children have always done.  We play.  We investigate and interact with our environments.  We improvise and adapt.

“design” is inherently about control.”

I’m not so sure that it is.  And if design is about control, then maybe I shouldn’t be a designer.”

Don’t know, not sure - if, as a painter, many of my works succeed as I intended they would.  Certainly I don’t have the patience or skill to do a lot of detail work, as I think of it. 

But does that make my work a failure?   No, according to David Armano - because people will react to art work independently of what the Artist intended - perhaps it’s more important that they react at all - and just scan and look on.

So maybe, we come back to “engagement” - the same thing that marketing tries to do (and I tried to measure on the IBM’s home page).   We can’t really control what people make of the messages we put out - but the most important thing might not be they get something out of it - not that they get exactly what we intended.

So..with my “Is Google God?” painting - it didn’t really do everything that I wanted in my mind - but I hope the colors speak for themselves - and if someone gets something entirely different out of my painting(s) than what I expected or intended, that’s not really a bad thing - As David points out - you can learn new things from how people react with your creation - or you get upset they don’t react as you intended.