Bauhaus Manifesto The Layers

Walter Gropius carefully wrote the Bauhaus Manifesto in 1919 where his introductory statement says, “The ultimate goal of all art is the building!”.

The idea of merging crafts and industrial aesthetics conveys the notion that we creators need to step back and observe things. “Bringing back sculpture, painting and drawing” is another statement that Gropius mentioned in his manifesto. This particular statement is something that I have practiced many times in my work and yet, I have not acknowledged this way of thinking. A clever use of using the word ‘building’ and returning to these foundational crafting elements steer me to discover the idea of natural and digital layering.

This was liberating to me. Being able to naturally express my creative abilities as well as the use of a computers’ A.I. ability to re-arrange code significantly help develop the Bauhaus Manifesto Poster Series. For this collaborative project, I started with raw materials like wood, stone, glass, concrete, metal; all things that can provide the foundation of a building. Going forward, the computer glitches and prints out the image. After everything was printed, I started drawing, painting abstract shapes and lines on the printed side of each image… anything that came to mind (the Kandinsky approach!). In closing, I went back and allow the computer to produce the finished look of each poster.

The formal way of having control and then having no control and letting technology take over brings this true authenticity to the project. Demonstrating the ideas that come from the humanistic point of view to an A.I. ability to create using code; then structuring these layers one on top of the other supports one of the characteristics of making a ‘building’. I believe as a designer, we all need to constantly observe future technology but never abandoning the foundations of craftsmanship. And, to challenge how our creative process, imagination and technology could build our very own building.