Provocations in Metaphors

I took common idioms or turns of phrase in the English language and started to verbally abstract them and play with my own associations to them. I think my next step is to visually abstract them and start making some more concrete poetry.

I got this idea from reading Flusser, On the Word Design: An Etymological Essay, The Designer's Glance and On Forms and Formulas. I found some interesting theories and wanted to play with these concepts in a way that emulates Flusser's his playful use of language.

Findings from my readings;

“ He wanted to highlight a net of new conditions with his phenomenology of the everyday, to demonstrate unsuspected connections” (57).

"According to Flusser, the designer potentially makes plans not just with single objects, but with relations. The discipline offers virtually ideal predispositions for this. Design is the "coincidence of splendid ideas" from science, art and economics. It seems to effortlessly combine disparate elements into a new web of relations” (58).

“ Everything that I say sounds like a philosophical thesis, but like one that is not too well supported. That's because people never detect the irony behind the statements. I don't take myself completely seriously, and I also don't take the problems completely seriously. I intend to provoke, in the true sense of the word-to call forth" (61).

“His observations on the gestures and rhythms of subtropical lands, a girl's walk, a scamp's ambling gait, or the clacking of a typewriter were encompassed in short prose pieces that oscillated between journalism and philosophy. The form of notes and essays allowed him constantly to change perspectives and to yoke together seemingly disjointed points” (59)

“This is a fine witches' brew; we concoct worlds in arbitrary forms and do at least as good a job as the Creator did in the famous six days. We're the warlocks, the designers; and that allows us, since we've outdone God, to make a clean sweep of our worktables (and of Kant's philosophical concerns, as well) concerning the question of reality. Reality is that which is properly, efficiently and scientifically computed into the forms; and the unreal (the dreamlike, the illusory) is that which is shoddily computed” (57)

“ The word "design" has won its current central place in common discourse because we (seemingly correctly) are beginning to lose faith in art and technology as the source of values” (52).

“He wanted to highlight a net of new conditions with his phenomenology of the everyday, to demonstrate unsuspected connections” (57)

"Flusser highlights the cruciality that language possesses and its power over us in its ability to construct our perception" (57).