Towards an approach, Notes on modernism and its influence on the definition of Design in dependent countries.

A consumer culture arises in the West, largely based on the capitalist model, which generates a production policy based on generating unnecessary needs in consumers, which I have called the “production of desires”.
To analyze Design from a perspective such as the one proposed by the great historian Sparke, supposes taking into account that the context in which a great part of his theory is developed, is a dominant system that is effective in its work. This led to the idea of modernism that had been consolidating in the West, thanks to the production industry and Design, “which as a productive practice or trade, is inserted in a system, in this case that of producing for the market”, to expand throughout the world and reach a split between countries in the center and developing countries.

In different places the idea of consumption was argued to seek the aspirations and identification of a society, which would allow it to differentiate itself from the rest. The Designer, in what could be considered the genesis of modernism, obtained a leading role within the monopoly of the market, in this case Design was submerged in a field where the economic system would evidently dominate.

Starting from what has been said, Sparke develops in a context influenced by a “system of the center” that has an efficient industry dedicated to the production and sale of aspirations that finally the great majority of the inhabitants of dependent countries end up buying. It should be noted that all this introduction in relation to the dominant systems is only to highlight that the idea of Design is clearly linked to the location in which it develops, largely affected by the economy, in addition to allowing us to understand the perspective from which different authors have contributed to the definition of the discipline.

In developing countries, specifically the country in which I live, Colombia, where it is not even easy to clarify a cultural identity due to the great diversity, it is very difficult to contextualize Design. Sparke exposes that it is not enough for the alliance of industry and market, the simple production of objects that satisfy needs, but that the objectives should carry a sign value, so that what gave entry to material culture was based on acquired objects of design, discriminating a value of use and functionality, giving priority to the power to manifest differentiation before society, from modernism society acquires products to manifest “status”. In this way, the industry produces objects, creating the need to show social difference, using advertising as a tool, with the aim of increasing its economic benefits.
The society, seeing the changes, towards a modernist collectivity, had contenders, seeing the substantial changes of cities, environments, the Design inevitably appeased any kind of consequence of a social transformation, arguing the satisfaction of needs and desires, with the excuse of a vision, aiming at the projection of the system.

The expansion of modernism allowed more societies to adopt an identity through consumption, in my opinion a superficial identity in the case of subordinated countries, which often desire the consumption of products that are driven by advertising, which is usually foreign, which in such a case, enters into collision, because it is advertising presented in a society with a low purchasing power, in addition to the fact that they face the interpretation of symbols with imposed values. In other words, the essential of a social system “knowing where it is going” is hindered by extra-cultural elements, which do not respond to the specific needs of a dependent system. In this order of ideas, in the Lationamiercan context, to make a clear conception about the function that the Design must develop becomes confusing simply because the logic of the market masks the true function of the Design.

In conclusion, I believe that dependent countries need to project and produce under the initiative of the use of their own technology, which responds to both aesthetic expressions and cultural needs; an organic, flexible, creative and critical Design.

References

SPARKE, Penny. Diseño y cultura. Una introducción desde 1900 hasta la actualidad. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 2010.

GONZALES RUIZ, Guillermo. Estudio de Diseño. Emece editores. Buenos aires, Argentina.1994.

Dussel, Enrique, Filosofía de la producción. Ed Nueva América. Bogotá, Colombia 1984.