A research through Design queery (rtDq) Faggots are the Future A CRITICAL AND PROCESS DOCUMENTATION THESIS PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER’S OF DESIGN, EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN, 2020 by JOSHUA J. SINGLER READER’S DISCRETION The following document contains frank and open explorations of sexuality & gender through the use of sexually suggestive themes, images and instances of mild nudity. Please also be advised that the following document uses derogatory language and slurs, which could potentially be triggering for certain individuals. “What does it mean to be orientated? How do we begin to know or to feel where we are, or even where we are going, by lining ourselves up with the features of the grounds we inhabit, the sky that surrounds us, or the imaginary lines that cut through maps? How do we know which way to turn to reach our destination?” (AHMED, 2006) Faggots are the Future A research through Design queery by JOSHUA J. SINGLER BACHELOR OF DESIGN HONOURS (BDes), York University / Sheridan College, 2017 Supervisor: Dr. Gillian Russell A CRITICAL AND PROCESS DOCUMENTATION THESIS DOCUMENT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF: MASTERS OF DESIGN (MDes), Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2020 © Joshua Singler, 2020 eBook ISBN: 978-1-7771276-3-3 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7771276-4-0 www.joshsingler.com Abstract The following thesis is positioned as a personal and reflexive research through design journey. In this journey, I explore ways which gender and sexual identity are influential constituents in my design and the design field at large. Through the use of queer and feminist points of view I invite the reader to engage in a critical reimagining of the city, of myself, and of the white hetero cis man's design world. Premised on using a queer lens to reimagine Christopher Frayling's notion of research through Design (rtD)–I aspire to find and experiment with strategies that aim at creating space for explorations outside of personal and societal margins, borders, and binaries. The following work outlines my methods as a communication designer, and grounds these methods with queer and feminist underpinnings that encourage the implementation of identity into our design processes. I position the following body of research as a queery or a research through design queery (rtDq); A self-reflexive research journey that emphasizes and uncovers opportunities for design interventions that address elements of ‘other’-ness present in one's identity. RESEARCH KEYWORDS: queer theory, research through design (rtD), gender and sexual identity, design activism, design for social innovation, communication design, semiotics, the everyday, the public realm, queer design praxis, LGBT+ ABSTRACT • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE v Table of Contents i Reader’s Discretion iv Committee Page v Abstract 1 Table of Contents 2 Preface | On the Title 3 List of Figures 5 Glossary 7 Acknowledgments 9 Dedication 11 Introduction 20 Methods 47 21 Wandering, exploring, collecting 22 Wandering without intent/with intent 36 Wandering to intervene 38 Sorting, resorting, changing contexts, reflecting Case Study: “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” 48 Word choice & conception 51 Wandering without intent/with intent 52 Gay / Queer Culture 57 Cognitive-mapping 59 Conclusion 61 Bibliography Colophon: A note on the type TABLE OF CONTENTS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 01 ON THE TITLE “Faggots are the Future” is a direct response to the boys in 2013, who bullied me nearly every day as I walked the halls of my catholic high school. This title is also in response to the older man in 2017, outside the liquor store, who didn’t like that I was holding another man’s hand. It is in response to the two Westboro Baptist church members picketing outside G-A-Y, a popular UK bar that I visited when I was in Europe in 2018. The title is in response to the homeless man, who, in 2019 got in my partner’s face because we greeted each other with a kiss on the sidewalk. As so eloquently put in David Higgs’ “Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories since 1600”: “terms used for same-sex practices have different values in different mouths at different times.” (Higgs, 1998: 4). “Faggots are the Future” is a proclaimation and reiteration of the message imbued in the body of my research. In no way am I trying to classify the entire queer community as such. I recognize that there is most certainly a time and place for the use of the word faggot, one which I cannot dictate for you. I can however, confidently say that this word should only be used by queer people. Any queer-identifying individual who feels comfortable with it should be allowed to use, or not use, the word at their leisure. Faggot is a word that we own, a word that has for too long been used to diminish and devalue our self-worth. The use of the word faggot in any sense reaches past a reappropriation or reclamation of a derogatory word and stands as a firm proclamation, that queer individuals acknowledge our differences and have realized the potential that these differences hold to change the way we conduct our everyday lives. The following body of research does not concern itself with discussing the linguistic epistemology of derogatory queer slurs, it is more so focused on experimenting of identity in tandem with the public realm, and elevating the power of ‘faggots’ for a future unbound by binary language and hierarchical structures. FIG 1-3: PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BC GAY & LESBIAN ARCHIVE, CITY OF VANCOUVER. Preface List of Figures FIG 1-3: Photos Courtesy of the BC Gay & Lesbian small bucket of confetti for the fairy, the story contin- Archive, City of Vancouver. ues to grow. FIG 4: J. Singler, “Fruitcake”, 2019. Digitally manipulat- FIG 9.6: J. Singler, 09/09/2019, Just a couple days later ed photo. and a new blank white page has been added, the story is still growing despite the rain. FIG 5: J. Singler, Explorations, 2018. Record player, typewriter, ink. FIG 9.7: J. Singler, 10/11/2019, Protective plastic sleeves have been added to the pages to keep them dry during FIG 6: J. Singler, poster design for my queer world the wet season, the story continues to grow on! making workshop, 2019. FIG 9.8: J. Singler, 12/11/2019, A rainy December night FIG 7: J. Singler, “Wandering in the Men’s Room”, 2018. discovery: a mini bed has been added for Trixie. Digital photograph. FIG 9.9: 03/09/2020, The last visit for awhile, into FIG 8: J. Singler, First day discovering the “Fairy COVID-19 quarantine, stay safe Trixie. Bridge”, prior to any interactions, 2019. FIG 10: J. Singler, Notebooks I filled up each semester, FIG 7.1: J. Singler, Four days after writing the first 2018-2020 response (Red outline), 2019. FIG 11: J. Singler, Small assortment of some of my FIG 8.2: J. Singler, The “Fairy Bridge” is located in this messy observations, poems, critiques, questions, 2018- hedge (Circled in red). 2020 FIG 9.0-.1: J. Singler, 09/01/2019, A visit reveals three FIG 12: J. Singler, Digital observations, poems, cri- separate responses to my “Yes! We saw one with pur- tiques, questions from my notes app, 2018-2020 ple hair on June 22nd, she’s named Trixie”. One person has also added chair and fairy dust. FIG 13: J. Singler, “Brunswick AND 8th”, 2018, Note. FIG 9.2-.3: J. Singler, 08/09/2019, Over a month has FIG 14: J. Singler, “16th and Ontario”, 2018, Note. passed, the story has already filled up the second piece of paper, a third is added. Someone says they saw her FIG 15: J. Singler, Sign typology that didn’t take form, on Davie Street, wondering if this persons making the 2019. same connection I originally did with a ‘fairy’. FIG 16: J. Singler, Parkette typology that didn’t take FIG 9.4-.5: J. Singler, 09/01/2019, A visit in September form, 2019. reveals lines of summer poetry and the addition of a LIST OF FIGURES • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 03 List of Figures FIG 17: J. Singler, “VAN-COUVER”, 2018-2020. Digital FIG 30: J. Singler, “YAAAAAAS QWEEN”, 2019. Manip- photographs. ulated photo. FIG 18: J. Singler, “NUMBERS”, 2018-2020. digital FIG 31: J. Singler, “Brunswick beach”, 2019. Mixed photographs. media on leaf. FIG 19: J. Singler, “DOORS”, 2018-2020. Digital photo- FIG 32: J. Singler, “Brunswick beach”, 2019. Digitally graphs. rendered poem. FIG 20: J. Singler, “Attentive to the search..”, 2018- FIG 33: J. Singler, “Loose Leaf”, 2016-2020. Leaves + 2020. digital photographs. typewriter. FIG 21: J. Singler, “A good neighbour...”, 2018-2020. FIG 34-35: J. Singler, Wearing “Atlas on the Back of a digital photographs. Faggot!” along Davie Street, Vancouver. Digital photograph. 2019. FIG 22: J. Singler, “Left you a note”, 2018-2020. Digital photographs. FIG 36: J. Singler, “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” In-process, Digital render FIG 23: J. Singler, Sign in Shaughnessy Heights, Digital photograph, 2019. FIG 37: J. Singler, “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” In-process, Digital photograph. FIG 24: J. Singler, Sign in Grandview-Woodland. Digital photograph, 2020. FIG 38: Alan Meeks, “Candice” typeface. FIG 25: Jason Eppnik, “Astoria Scum River Bridge”, FIG 39/40: Photos Courtesy of the BC Gay & Lesbian 2009. Archive, City of Vancouver FIG 26: J. Singler, “Fruitcake”, 2019. Digitally manipu- FIG 41: Harvey Finklestein, “SILENCE=DEATH”,1987. lated photograph. FIG 42: Hal Fischer, “Gay Semiotics”, 1977. FIG 27: J. Singler, “Neue Heimat”, 2016. FIG 43: Photos used with the permission of LOCKFIG 28: J. Singler, “We are everywhere!”, 2020 Manipu- WOOD51, 2020. lated photograph. FIG 44: J. Singler, “Studio”, Digital photograph, 2019. FIG 29: J. Singler, “Masculinity”, 2019. Manipulated photograph. LIST OF FIGURES • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 04 Glossary BINARIES: System in which society allocates members official streetscape planning and design elements” into one of two sets of roles, identities, and attributes (Douglas, 2018: 3) based on their genitalia. (Lorber, 2007) FOLX: An umbrella term for people with a nonCULTURAL HEGEMONY: “The domination of a normative sexual orientation or identity, where ‘x’ culturally diverse society by the ruling class who denotes a gender neutrality. (McFedries, 2004) manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores.” (Bullock IDENTITY: “The fact of being who or what a person or + Trombley, 1999: 387-388) thing is.” (Oxford University Press) CIS/CISGENDER: An individual whose personal and ‘OTHER’-NESS”: A “position of strength” which gender identities correspond with their sex assigned at “generates different ways of thinking and doing their birth. (Schilt, 2009) than those represented by the power center”, through the: ‘reading between the lines’ of official or DÉRIVE (FRENCH: “DRIFT”), “A mode of experimental institutionalized representations, examining. . .invisible, behaviour linked to the condition of urban society, a interstitial, or feral spaces.” (Ericson + Mazé, 2011: 151) technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances” (Debord, 1958) PHOTO TYPOLOGY: “. . .a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. . .within the DESIGN ACTIVISM: “Enforcement of positive subjects, environment, process, and presentation or socio-political change by intervening in daily lives.” direction of subject. . .to enable objective comparison of (Heidaripour & Forlano, 2018) [similar] subjects. . .or to create a relationship between [unrelated] subjects.” (Davis, 2017) DESIGN FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION: “Everything that expert design can do to activate, sustain, and orient POST-STRUCTURALIST: Intellectual critique on processes of social change toward sustainability” moments of weakness in social systems, primarily on (Jégou + Manzini, 2008) hierarchies of gender, sexuality and race. (Harcourt, 2007) DESIGN INTERVENTION: “. . .physical objects, embodied experiences, and affective engagements. . .an QUEER: “. . .an umbrella term for sexual and gender activist practice with the unique qualities of minorities who are not heterosexual or are not engaging participants and facilitating co-creation of cisgender.” (Bernstein, 2008) alternatives.”(Heidaripour & Forlano, 2018) QUEERING: Technique to look for “. . .places where DIY OR TACTILE URBANISM: “. . .unauthorized things such as gender, sexuality, masculinity, and yet intentionally functional and civic-minded femininity can be challenged and questioned.” (Barker improvements to urban spaces, in forms inspired by + Scheele, 2016) GLOSSARY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 05 Glossary (cont.) QUERY: “An inquiry, to ask questions of; a desire for authoritative information.” (Merriam-Webster) QUEERY: A self-reflexive research journey that emphasizes and uncovers opportunities for design intervention that address the ‘other’-ness present in one's identity. QUEER THEORY: “An approach to literary and cultural study that rejects traditional categories of gender and sexuality.” (Merriam-Webster) RTD: (ACRONYM FOR: “RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN”), Frayling’s notion of design activities which work to form and generate knowledge through the making process. (Frayling, 1993) RTDQ: (ACRONYM FOR: “RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN QUEERY”), My proposed implemented shift to imbed queer theory into Research through Design efforts. SEMIOSIS: “. . .activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning; the study of signs and their meanings.” (Bains, 2006) SITUATIONIST MOVEMENT: Sometimes referred to as Situationist International (SI) was premised on the idea that “The world we live in is governed by unexamined and unrecognized cultural forces, which can only be undone through engineering radically different situations from which to reflect.” (Seiferle, 2019) STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: The minds default state, a person’s thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow used in my writing exercises. (Gottschall 2012; James, 1890). GLOSSARY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 06 Acknowledgements TO THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THIS LAND: It is imperative to acknowledge this thesis research was conducted by a white, nonIndigenous, uninvited guest, situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded, stolen territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səlilw ̓ ətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Nations. Indigenous People of this land have endured decades of ongoing cultural genocide. Any progress made in way of reconciliation was recently tarnished with the January 2019, and January 2020 RCMP invasions to seize ancestral land at gunpoint from the Unist’ot’en (C’ihlts’ehkhyu/ Big Frog Clan) community. These acts are certainly not the first in the Canadian government’s history and they have sadly proven to not be the last. I stand with and support Unist’ot’en (C’ihlts’ehkhyu/Big Frog Clan) and other Indigenous communities and individuals who continue to face acts of oppression on a daily basis. I acknowledge that this research was conducted at an institution that was built on stolen land, and was only possible because of the acts of white colonizers. TO MY FAMILY: I want to first acknowledge my parents Brenda and John for all of their sacrifices over the years. I know first hand it has never been easy, but it has been worth it. Thank you for never doubting my potential and always encouraging me to follow my gut. Thank you to my siblings and extended family for their continued love and support. Thank you for always believing in me and loving me even when you are not able to find a specific entry point to relate to me and my identity as a queer man. Rosalia and Leopold, my paternal grandparents who are no longer with us. I never had the opportunity to share my queer identity with you while you were alive. While writing I kept you both close to my heart. Rose, I often think back your story of having to flee your home Austria-Hungary during WWII to come to Canada on the search of a “Neue Heimat” (German: new homeland). Rest easy Nanny and Poppy Singler, I have found my Neue Heimat, and I wish I could share it with you. TO MY FRIENDS: Ladies, thank you for absolutely everything. I am truly blessed to have a group of such strong, intelligent, creative women in my life. It goes without saying, but I truly would not be alive today if it was not for the unwavering stability of your friendship. Thank you for always telling me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear, and for always being there to help pull me out of some of the darkest moments in my life. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 07 Acknowledgements (cont.) TO MY MENTORS: I wish to extend a heartfelt thank you to Myles Bartlett, my advisor in my undergrad Bachelor of Design (BDes) program at York University–Sheridan College’s Joint Program in Toronto, Ontario. Thank you for instilling your confidence in me, my work, and encouraging me to dig deeper and pursue a Master’s degree. Thank you to Randy Lee Cutler for your generous and honest feedback in the final stretch of my Master’s. Your wisdom and guidance inspired and pushed my work in a direction of authenticity that wouldn’t have been possible without you. A huge thank you to my advisor Dr. Gillian Russell for coming on board during a difficult time of unknown for me and my research. Thank you for the stability and wealth of knowledge you have offered. Thank you for your unwavering dedication and trust in me and to my research. Thank you for putting up with my incessant texts and emails whenever I was in a panic. Lastly, thank you for challenging me to push myself to think otherwise. Lastly, I would not have been able to properly synthesize this body of work without the close guidance and support from several incredibly wise and passionate faculty members, who each had a lasting and unique impact on my time as a graduate student. This thesis work was in no way easy and it truly ‘took a village’. A very warm thank you is extended to Craig Badke, Dr. Katherine Gillieson, Dr. Mimi Gellman, Hélène Day Fraser, Laura Kozak, Cameron Neat, Louise St. Pierre, Jacqueline Turner and Dr. Bonne Zabolotney. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 08 TO MY YOUNGER SELF: Told you we’d make it out alive buddy. FIG 4: J. SINGLER, “FRUITCAKE”, 2019. DIGITIALLY MANIPULATED PHOTO. Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction Introduction FIG 5: J. SINGLER, EXPLORATIONS, 2018. DIGITIALLY RECORD PLAYER /TYPEWRITER/INK. The following body of work is an exploration in research to seek out strategies that transgress the seemingly fixed boundaries, and non-negotiable binaries of the heterosexual (hetero), white, cisgender (cis) man’s design world that has long negated opportunities to examine the power of queer and feminist voices in design. I endeavour to find opportunities on the margins that emphasize the role of one’s identity in facilitating a design practice that leads with care and intentionality. To define ‘exploration in research’ I turn to British educationalist Christopher Frayling’s essay “Research in Art and Design” (1993), where he delineates the word research by separating it into big (‘R’) Research; understood as “obscure corners of specialized libraries, where solitary scholars live; white coated people in laboratories, doing esoteric things with test-tubes; universities, rather than colleges…” (Frayling, 1993: 1) and little (‘r’) research; Something that artists and designers have been doing for hundreds of years, and involves “searching, closely or carefully, for or after a specified thing or person” (Ibid.). Frayling states: “So research with a little r has been used, in the last four hundred years, of art practice, of personal quests, and of clues and evidence which a detective must decode…it is not about professionalism, or rules and guidelines, or laboratories. It is about searching” (Ibid.,1). Here, I believe Frayling is implying that research (‘r’) focuses on the journey, unburdened with the stress of having to reach a final outcome or eventual destination. For the sake of my research I define and give name to this research (‘r’) journey as a ‘queery.’ In approaching my research with a queer lens, I am adding an italicized ‘e’ to the word ‘query’. Taking the traditional definition of query, meaning: “to pose a question… often influenced by a desire for authoritative information” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1999) and injecting queerness into the foundation through the support and consultation of queer and female academic perspectives that both acknowledge and actively work to create reimagined opportunities within the relationship between design and the public realm. To better understand the context this queery is conducted in I will classify it as a “research through design” exploration. This term comes from Frayling’s 1993 paper that he delineates (‘r’) and (‘R’) research, where he also presents three different types of art and design research: 1) Research into art and design, 2) Research through art and design, and 3) Research for art and design. Put simply, the queery is grounded as a research through design exploration because it is a: “practice-based inquiry that generates transferrable knowledge” (Durrant, Vines, Wallace, Yee, 2017: 3). Frayling states that out of his three terms, research through design (rtD) is the one that academic institutions should focus on developing most and further defines it as an act of approaching a problem outside of design with a design-led approach that “involves care” (Frayling, 1993: 1). Care in its dictionary definition means to “Look after and provide the needs of.” (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.). As a queer INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 12 designer who has often felt excluded and uncomfortable in this industry, I know the importance of approaching design with care. The queery practices care by designing slowly and intentionally, paying attention to details and intricacies throughout the process to find moments of opportunity. Paying attention to these intricacies or low-level areas of study has the potential to be misunderstood or written off as inconsequential research, however, queer authors like Halberstam present this as one of the strengths of a queer approach in their work “The Queer Art of Failure” by stating: “I believe in low theory in popular places, in the small, the inconsequential, the antimonumental, the micro, the irrelevant; I believe in making a difference by thinking little thoughts and sharing them widely. I seek to provoke, annoy, bother, irritate, and amuse; I am chasing small projects, micropolitics, hunches, whims, fancies.” (Halberstam, 2011: 21) Affording for the “inconsequential or antimonumental”, as Halberstam puts it, allows you to pay attention and practice care with elements of our everyday interactions with the public realm that may normally be written off or ignored. The queery spends time and energy to slow down and sit with little topics whose outcome or purpose might not immediately be apparent. This practice of care allows for the potential of discoveries to be made on the margins where few researchers are situated. Care is also built into the queery through a constant acknowledgement and awareness of privilege while conducting research. This privilege is not seen as something to dwell on, more so something that influences action towards producing design possibilities aimed at social innovation. Another essential element of the queery is that it is collaborative and interdisciplinary. In a 2015 interview Frayling makes a provocation in response to his 1993 paper, he asks for design researchers to consider interdisciplinarity as both a theoretical approach to research, and as a methodological tool for action. Regarding the next decade of rtD (2015-2025), he states: “Design-led interdisciplinary should be written over the door of the next phase of research through design” (Frayling, 2015). Frayling’s provocation stands as a call to design researchers to work in tandem with practitioners who are considered professionals in their field. Working with the underpinnings of queer and feminist theorists I see merit in Frayling’s provocation for an interdisciplinary approach to design research. The queery is dependent on creating opportunities for the coalescing of practitioners who are considered experts in their respective fields as it allows for the casting of a much wider net and creates greater opportunities to highlight ‘other’-ness in our methods and approaches to working, living, and interacting with design. Establishing interdisciplinary working INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 13 partnerships in design research takes time, funding and resources in order to bridge the gap between the fields. In the following research, I suspend these obstacles by situating the public as practitioner. I recognize that “the public” or the “the public realm” are both rather nebulous concepts; however, they are subject matters that I and other designers often find themselves working with and for. In situating the public as practitioner in my design interventions, I also make the claim that the public is an expert. An active and practicing public, with all of its parts, is an expert in and of itself, so long as it continues to operate and generate interaction between its constituents. By situating the public as partner in my research efforts I am able to meet the interdisciplinary obligations in Frayling’s provocation with the personal and reflexive design interventions that I conduct with and within the public realm. Before diving into examining the exercises that I conducted as part of my interdisciplinary relationship with the public realm, it is important that I continue laying the groundwork for my theoretical approach. As mentioned, I am approaching my queery as someone who proudly identifies as queer. Beginning my research two years ago I identified as gay and in fact I did not entirely understand the meaning or necessity of queer. Truthfully, as much of my philosophy stands, I have not finished or come to any sort of finite conclusion on its meaning. However, as I began to explore the relativity of my design work through a queer and feminist theoretical framework, I was able to start gaining a new understanding of the necessity for the term “queer”. A queer identity establishes itself independently from a gay identity by arguing that a gay identity presents elements of assimilation. The assimilative qualities of a gay identity are reflective of conservative ideals like marriage and children. A queer identity presents a more radical approach that seeks to transgress these assimilative acts like marriage or children to explore possibilities that hold greater potential to challenge heteronormative lifestyles (Kemp, 2009). In using the terminology “queer identity”, I am referring to elements that reach further than just my sexuality. These elements consist of, but are certainly not limited to: my gender, race, morals, hobbies, physical appearance, so on and so forth. These are all elements that result in the eventual presentation and realization of self in society. In my own personal reflections of a “gay identity” I began to question if my desires to one day marry a man, have children, a dog, and a white picket fence, were in-part me trying to assimilate as closely as possible to a heteronormative structure, one that I have continuously witnessed throughout my life. These reflections then forced me to look at examples of traditionally ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ work in my research from a more critical mindset. This exploration and delineation of gay and queer in my theoretical framework shifted my research approach and heightened my awareness that a queery is a transformative and ever evolving process. In queer theorist José Muñoz’s book “Cruising Utopia” (2009), he elaborates on this concept of queerness not being INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 14 stagnant by stating: “Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer. We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality” (Muñoz, 2009: 1). Here Muñoz is echoing similar sentiments to Frayling’s notion of rtD being a useful tool for when: “…you’ve got something on the horizon that you want to use design to get you to…” (Frayling, 2015). In the case of the queery I am using design to get me to a more authentic place of queerness in both my identity and design. The separate sentiments of Muñoz (a queer cis man of colour), and Frayling (a hetero white cis man), act as a combined catalyst to continue this potentially life-long exploration of understanding the role of my evolving identity on my practice as a designer. I find support in this life-long exploration through British design critic and author Alice Rawsthorn, who in her book “Design as an Attitude” (2018) states: “As binary definitions of cis male and cis female appear increasingly outdated, it is even more important for us to all be able to decide how to express the nuances of our personal identities in our design choices, rather than leaving it to the cis male establishment that has sustained the ‘man’s world’ of design for so long” (Rawsthorn, 2018: 75). Rawsthorn’s work is one of many examples, including Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s “We Must Make Queer Praxis Accessible” (2018), which details “…relationships between self/subject/object and desire [to cause] breaks in the chain of hegemonic thought.” (Takahashi, 2018), Julia Serano’s (2013) “Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive”, advocating for more honest inclusion of transgender women in the history of feminist and queer movements and the book “Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice” (2017), which is a collection of different feminist critiques on design. Each of these examples address the influential dominance of hetero white cis men in the design field through their critiques and inform my work by giving me rationale and impetus to pursue this queery. In recognizing that my ever-evolving identity has a strong influence on the decisions that I make as I move through my day I was also able to acknowledge that many professional settings do not afford the time or space for to explore queerness as it is present in my identity. As designers, we are often asked to put ourselves into the mindset of the person/place/thing we are designing for and to keep their best intentions at the forefront of our choices. This approach often negates the probability that the person/place/thing has a unique identity that will eventually impact and INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 15 alter the course of our design. One point of my professional training as a designer that I am able to point to and acknowledge as an example that lacked this affordance of personal identity in the design process was the foundation year curriculum of my undergraduate education at a design institution in Toronto. I often found myself injecting my gay identity onto the back end of a project instead of recognizing and harnessing it’s influence on my design process upfront. In a particular instance, I had a professor urge me to begin exploring subjects outside of my gay identity as he believed it would “limit my options to get hired” after graduating. This hetero white cis male professor believed that by addressing gay topics with my communication design projects, such as the MSM blood ban which prohibits men who have sex with men from donating blood, would result in me building a portfolio that lacked range. During my undergraduate education I was introduced to a multitude of teachings and references from the Bauhaus and their founders Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. I understood these men as archetypes of particular design movements and theories, however, my education never chose to address the fact that they are all hetero white cis men. Another common example explored in design institutions and is widely understood as “fact” is Dieter Rams’ “Ten Principles of Good Design”. Although Rams’ writings are merely theory or opinion, much of my undergraduate education was premised on exploring and emulating Rams’ ten commandments. I start by addressing Rams’ principle #10: “Good design is as little design as possible: Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.” (Rams, 2012) I do this through a developed design aesthetic that I consider to be messy and cluttered (FIG 6). My aesthetic pulls inspiration from communication designers student directed workshop join us in the desis lab for a collaborative queer world-making* workshop how do we communicate and live with each other in a city? what happens when we place emphasis on “...failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming” to foster “more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world.” (Halberstam 2011, 2) come with an open mind, leave with a custom risograph poster! ___________________________________________ MONDAY NOVEMBER 25, 430-630 DESIS LAB, ROOM B3150 MONDAY NOVEMBER 25, 430-630 MONDAY NOVEMBER 25, 430-630 DESIS LAB, ROOM B3150 DESIS LAB, ROOM 25, B3150 MONDAY NOVEMBER 430-630 MONDAY NOVEMBER 430-630 DESIS LAB, ROOM 25, B3150 DESIS LAB, ROOM B3150 *queer worldmaking is ”creative, performative, intimate, public, disruptive, utopian, it’s a space of entrances, exits, unsystematized lines of acquaintance, projected horizons, typifying examples, alternate routes, blockages, incommensurate geographies through complex theory, artful exhibition, street activism, and practices of everyday life..” (qed: a journal in glbtq worldmaking, michigan state university press, twothousand eleven) we can listen and push back at the same time student researcher: josh singler faculty collaborator: gillian russell FIG 6: J. SINGLER, POSTER DESIGN FOR MY QUEER WORLD MAKING WORKSHOP, 2019. INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 16 like David Carson, who was the art director of Ray Gun magazine and is sometimes considered the “godfather of grunge typography” (Bierut, 1996) In direct opposition to my undergrad education that introduced me to Rams’ ideas that non-essentials “burden” design, my queery and general design aesthetic argues that the non-essentials are what give my work context and make my work unique. Rarely will you see me concentrating on only the “essential aspects” as Rams cites, instead, to highlight an essential aspect I employ repetition for emphasis. Other popular hetero white cis male examples taught in design institutions include Victor Margolin and Richard Buchanan’s “The Idea of Design” (1995), Reyner Banham’s “Theory and Design in the First Machine Age” (1960), Nigel Cross’ “Designerly Ways of Knowing” (1982), along with a multitude of others that all fail to include female and queer perspectives. An example of the hierarchical language that is used in these texts is Victor Papanek’s statement that: “…design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself )” (Papanek, 1971: 1) Here you begin to see the use of binary language that not only supports the hetero white cis man, but through the use of reintroducing the already evident hierarchy, ushers him forward as the “shaper” or “creator” of our societies, and our world. These examples, which continue to be referenced in design institutions and only work to reinforce a social structure that favours the hetero white cis man, eradicate the possibility to address personal identities outside of this scope. With that in mind, my queery not only recognizes that design’s epistemology has its flaws but works at finding opportunities to include and explore identities that are on the margins. As it stands, the design field prefaces itself on the work of men and consequently presents weak representations of race, gender and sexual identities. The way that I was introduced to the design industry presented very few opportunities to address aspects of my identity in my design decisions. I recognize and point out that the issue of favouring the hetero white cis man originates and reaches far outside the boundaries of the design industry and that much of our world is made up of inequal societies plagued with inequality. The aim of this research was never to wrestle with this inequality on a macro level, but approach it from inside and approach the topic of inequality on a more micro level by identifying missed opportunities for designers to be personal and reflexive and creating new ones. In pointing out that my education was premised on the work of hetero white cis men I should also acknowledge that I am a white cis man. Although I identify as queer, my white cis male identity comes with a certain level of responsibility. I am afforded certain privileges in my design practice that perhaps a black, transgender, female (or combination of ) designer is not. This is another way that I practice care with the queery. As I stated earlier, practicing care in the queery involves a slow and intentional approach to design decisions. Here, this acknowledgement of my position INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 17 of privilege and pivoting to use it as a tool for action is a result of approaching my research slowly and intentionally, weighing the odds, taking into account how my decisions as a designer might be received, how they might sit within a public realm. I am looking after and providing the needs of those who may not know what the role of a designer is, opening up a level of transparency and eliminating that hierarchy present in the systems in place. With the queery it is important to ensure that I am not practicing and conducting design research within a vacuum. Throwing away any notion that I am designing solutions for a user. In a lecture that I attended on campus titled “User Experience and the Pluriverse: What Inclusion Really Means” (2020), delivered by Dr. Dimeji Onafuwa, he discussed Arturo Escobar’s understanding of collectivism and the pluriverse’s aim to design “a world where many worlds fit” (Onafuwa, 2020). Escobar’s definition of the pluriverse relates back to my notion that the queery is collaborative and interdisciplinary, that it depends on one another to bring themselves, wholly and honestly to the decisions that we make as designers. Escobar states in his book “Designs for a Pluriverse” (2018) that the pluriverse is: “…an ethical and political practice of alterity that involves a deep concern for social justice, the radical equality of all beings, and nonhierarchy. It’s about the difference that all marginalized and subaltern groups have to live with day in and day out, and that only privileged groups can afford to overlook as they act as if the entire world were, or should be, as they see it.” (Escobar, xvi: 2018) My concern for social justice is motivated by an education system and public realm that fails to create consistent and adequate space for queer individuals to explore their identity as it pertains to their practice. Escobar raises the valid point that privileged groups have the luxury to overlook the state of the world, whereas marginalized individuals have to witness the direct affects firsthand. I use the queery to directly respond to Escobar’s point by using this luxury or privileged position as a white cis man to take action and to introduce design interventions into the interdisciplinary relationship with the public realm to start generating important discussions aimed at initiating change instead of just benefitting off of my position. One could assume by this point that my queery proposal to (‘r’) research is in essence an attempt at “queering” design. Queering, as a term has become an increasingly popular topic in academia and research and is one which I may explore more in my practice when I feel more confident in my understanding of gender and sexuality studies. Due to the scope of this queery being that of discovering and challenging my identity in a design context, I did not dedicate my time to exclusively exploring queer references. I began this queery on a heteronormative pretense and INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 18 slowly saw a transformation towards a queerer sense of identity and focus. Where the term queering is concerned, it requires more of an exclusive and subjective queer focus (Barker, Scheele, 2016). The queery as I see it, is more concerned and focused on the action and execution of the search. Instead of exerting time and energy towards examining and rejecting the hetero white cis-male point of view, the queery dips in and out of queer themes as a consultation for reframing the hetero references in a queerer context on this journey to better understanding my identity and it’s authority over my design practice. To clarify, those embarking on a queery do not need to personally identify as queer as at it’s very core the queery is an open invitation. The queery welcomes and celebrates failure, is non-hierarchal, roots for the underdog, and it accepts influence and guidance from the strangest of places. With that being said, some of the references explored in my research do come from a hetero white cis male author. It is important to the queery not to outwardly reject these perspectives, however, conduct an exploration of them in a way that attempts to dismantle hierarchal structures present across gender, race and sexuality in design research. Although dismantling perhaps sounds like an arduous task, in the context of the queery it can be as simple as creating spaces that emphasize elements of ‘other’-ness; in the ways we work, live, and interact with design and the public realm. In my research, this means that I give more time and attention to places and approaches that elicit an untraditional trajectory or research outcome. The queery examines references in a way that does not follow a linear trajectory that is easily measurable in a traditional academic or post-graduate timeline. Here it can be understood that the trajectory, for lack of a better word, is one that I, the conductor of the queery, has embarked on independently. It is my hope that the following queery will properly demonstrate how the affordance of a queer perspective in design-led research can allow for a more encompassing perspective of the contexts and work that designers are producing in modern, complex societies. It is also my hope that this queery will consequently argue the need to implement research approaches that give more attention to identity in design and do not consistently rely on the support of hetero white cis male references. In the following thesis I will begin by outlining core methods I use in my design process being: (1) Wandering, exploring, collecting, (with/without intent, to intervene), and (2) Sorting, resorting, changing contexts, reflecting. Sequentially, I will present a case study on a design intervention that follows my design process and demonstrates my main applied methods. INTRODUCTION • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 19 Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods Methods FIG 7: J. SINGLER, “WANDERING IN THE MENS ROOM”, 2018. DIGITIAL PHOTOGRAPH. (1) Wandering, Exploring, Collecting (*Without intent, With intent, To intervene) I have always been a curious individual, as a child my parents found it difficult to get me to stick to a single sport or hobby for longer than a season. Instead of sticking to it and focusing on perfecting my craft, I was more interested in finding a way to orient or understand myself through the sport or hobby. This was at least the case until I reached a point of feeling I was unable to do so, at which time I would enroll into something new. This was my way of trying to understand my identity as a gay child and attempting to orient myself with the world. In “Queer Phenomenology – Orientations, Objects, Others”, Sara Ahmed explains this question of orienting oneself as: “…not only about how we ‘find our way’ but how we come to ‘feel at home’” (Ahmed, 2006: 7). I was unable to “feel at home” with myself in relation to these sports and hobbies, so naturally I would continue to wander from one interest to the next in search of something that felt like home. Ahmed continues by saying that although an individual may know left from right or east from west it does not necessarily mean that they know where they are going because there is still the condition of possibility in orienting oneself. In these circumstances as a child I may have been learning how to properly cradle a lacrosse ball, but I was still feeling disoriented in those spaces and yet to truly “feel at home” (Ibid.). Growing up gay I was met with an internal challenge of orienting both the person I projected out into the world, but also the one that was being suppressed. Throughout my adolescence I continued on this journey with the intention of getting to a point where I could feel completely comfortable in my own skin. Another interesting point that Ahmed raises is that in order for someone to become oriented, they must first be disoriented. I can make the claim that I have spent much of my life disoriented, at least in the way of connecting the projection of self to my own internal identity. The queery was a journey that involved me shifting from a gay to a queer identity and required me to work within the conflict of disorientation to uncover potential. As Ahmed says in her text: “When we don’t give up, when we persist, when we are ‘under pressure’ to arrive, to get somewhere, we give ourselves over to the line” (Ibid.). For my entire life I have unknowingly put myself under the pressure of getting to the destination of feeling at peace with myself. The following queery that I embarked on was, in a sense, an exploration in “giving myself over to the line” (Ibid.). or in other words, an experiment without boundaries. This experiment required me to look at my perception of myself in relation to the public realm and to the design field. Early on in my research I turned to philosophical texts like George Herbert Mead’s “Mind, Self, and Society” (1934), Erving Goffman’s “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” (1956), “Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction”(1961), “Interaction Ritual” (1967), Henri Lefe- METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 21 bvre’s “The Production of Space” (1974) and “Critique of Everyday Life” (1977). The exploration of these philosophical texts is an example of how the queery considers an interdisciplinary approach and accepts influence from every direction. Giving myself over to the line or to the expectation that I had to follow a traditional research trajectory, required me to not be preoccupied with finding a conclusion or answer. This meant that I had to spend a lot of time sitting in the uncomfortable and uneasy feelings of questioning and wondering. I used this to guide and propel movements through my research and I allowed it to influence my design interventions. The best way to describe this would be that I approached my research from a sense of wandering. I practice this through my writing, my city, my identity, and so on. Wandering in the physical sense of a city often meant that I was ignoring municipally regulated sidewalks and paths in turn to occupy spaces which lie outside of these boundaries. In a personal sense, I occupy space outside of the binaries of a heterosexual relationship by exploring and wandering on the socially constructed margins and boundaries of sexuality. This method of stepping over boundaries, exploring, and wandering outside of the binary gives potential to be privy to circumstances and make observations that most people would overlook or not come across, and as Magnus Ericson and Ramia Mazé, state in “Tactics of Occupying the Margins of Design” (2011): “The ‘marginal’ can be reclaimed and activated as an ideological–and powerful–force in design. One tactic is that of emphasizing ‘other’-ness” (Ericson + Mazé, 2011: 151). Approaching this queery from the margins, as a queer designer, allows for me to emphasize and play with the boundaries and possibilities of ‘other’-ness by granting me the liberties of not having to confide in and follow conservative ideals. Wandering as a method actively works to transcend borders and boundaries to further emphasize the opportunity that ‘other’-ness can afford. This method further accentuates areas of inadequacy or opportunity for the designer to intervene. Celia Lury and Nina Wakeford cite Mariam Fraser in their book “Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Social” by stating: “…a method can be inventive if it can be deployed to ‘lure’ materials into posing their own problems”. (Lury + Wakeford, 2012: 21) I use wandering as a way of imploring the public realm to pose problems to me. Wandering as a method, presents itself as a magnifier to emphasize certain aspects that often get overlooked in a hetero white cis man’s world. Whether in a city, an author’s text, or my own identity, I use wandering as a method to orient and further reveal opportunities for intervention. Wandering through the city of Vancouver for the past two years has been a vital aspect for the ever-evolving nature of my research. In order to properly examine wandering as part of my design process, I have broken it down into two subsections: (1) Wandering without intent, wandering with intent, and (2) Wandering to intervene. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 22 (1) Wandering without intent … Wandering with intent Although my queery can be understood as an act of “wandering with intent”–where the intent is to further explore my identity and opportunities for it to influence my design process–some of my initial wandering experiments were conducted without a specific intent or destination in mind. On these exercises I would allow myself to be influenced by the public realm, acting and reacting to the environment in real time. In a similar vein to the dérive, first defined by Guy Debord, and the Situationist movement, my wanderings were explored as both the literal translation of the dérive: “drifting” but also as a mode of uncovering sites of possibility. Debord defines the dérive as “A mode of experimental behaviour linked to the condition of urban society, a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances” (Debord, 1958). The dérive is a way of immediately responding to changes in environments and landscapes as you experience them. Debord explains that the dérive attempted to “…unsettle the familiarity of a landscape determined by set patterns of work or leisure, and a famous example involved navigating one city (Paris) by use of the map of another city (Berlin)” (Chesters + Welsh, 2010: 152). With Debord’s theory in mind, I chose to approach the gathering phase of my research using my conceptual notion of wandering. This method differs slightly from Debord’s dérive as it extends past the physical act of moving through a city’s landscape and into how I enact my design, reading and writing processes. My acts of wandering work as a productive method or strategy to navigate the public realm to reveal certain aspects of a society that others may normally ignore or dismiss. During my wandering exercises I make intentional choices to seek out particular streets, paths or options that I knowingly have yet to explore. I understand and conduct these wandering exercises as a probe of sorts, where I start by unintentionally embarking on this walk around the city without a desire to reach any particular destination. One of my initial discoveries while wandering was outside of somebody’s garden. What I presumed to be a child, posted up a piece of paper that read: “The Fairy Bridge: We saw a fairy here, we saw her at 6:00 pm, have you seen a fairy?”. Beside these words was a drawing of a fairy and at the bottom of the paper were the words “Keep this going”. Of course, the first place my mind went when I was prompted with the question “Have you seen a fairy?” was, yes of course I have. I immediately connected to the gay innuendo and meaning of the word fairy within the queer community; a derogatory term to describe a more effeminate gay man. In recognizing the position that I was approaching this child’s call to the community from, I found a way to weave an aspect of my identity into the story. I happened to be the first to write back to this child’s call to the community and decided to give the fairy the name Trixie (The name of a drag queen entertainer who competed on METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 23 FIG 8.0: FIRST DAY DISCOVERING THE FAIRY BRIDGE, PRIOR TO ANY INTERACTION, 2019. FIG 8.1: FOUR DAYS AFTER WRITING THE FIRST RESPONSE (RED OUTLINE), 2019. FIG 8.2 THE FAIRY BRIDGE IS LOCATED IN THIS HEDGE (CIRCLED IN RED). METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 24 MAPPING MOVEMENTS OF THE FAIRY BRIDGE Φ 49° 16’ 22.698” N λ 123° 3’ 58.49” FIG 9.0-.1: 06/25/2019, A visit reveals three seperate responses to my “Yes! We saw one with purple hair on June 22nd, she’s named Trixie”. One person has also added chair and fairy dust. FIG 9.2-.3: 08/09/2019, Over a month has passed, the story has already filled up the second piece of paper, a third is added. Someone says they saw her on Davie Street, wondering if this persons making the same connection I originally did with a ‘fairy’. FIG 9.4-.5: 09/01/2019, A visit in September reveals lines of summer poetry and the addition of a small bucket of confetti for the fairy, the story continues to grow. FIG 9.7: 10/11/2019, Protective plastic sleeves have been added to the pages to keep them dry during the wet season, the story continues to grow on! METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE FIG 9.8: 12/11/2019, A rainy December night discovery: a mini bed has been added for Trixie. FIG 9.6: 09/09/2019, Just a couple days later and a new blank white page has been added, the story is still growing despite the rain. FIG 9.9: 03/09/2020, The last visit for awhile, into COVID-19 quarantine, stay safe Trixie. 25 “RuPaul’s Drag Race”—a popular gay reality television show). Despite the fact that I was most likely the only one to recognize the significance of naming this fairy Trixie, the act of embedding a queer character into this child’s call to the community is evidence of how I began to play with identity in my design interactions with the public realm. Weeks passed and different additions were made to the paper. Dozens of handwritten responses from passersby began to build a narrative for Trixie the fairy (FIG 8.1, 9-9.9) I continued to visit this site frequently with the anticipation of checking for any new additions. Over the months that I visited, several new pieces of paper were added to help supplement the growing narrative, and even elements like a small hanging lantern of glitter and other physical artefacts like a tiny chair for the fairy began to appear (FIG 8-9.9). In contrast to a folktale or folklore, the fairytale that was being written in response to this child’s call became an outlet for me to witness and experience the power of community engagement. Having the opportunity to visit the site regularly and check-in on what the community members were adding to the fairytale reassured and connected me to something broader than just the physical space. This specific site gave me a sense of belonging in a city where I am often bumped into by people who seem to be more interested in looking at their phones than the environment and people around them. I can only begin to imagine what this collaborative community fairytale meant to the young child who originally put it up as just a question to the community. In examining the characteristics of a fairytale, Muñoz states: “…the fairytale narrates a wish-fulfillment which is not bound by its own time and the apparel of its contents. In contrast to the folktale, which is always tied to a particular locale, the fairy tale remains unbound” (Muñoz, 2009: 163). Although the particular fairytale that was unfolding at this site was physically located in a specific area of Vancouver, the contents of the story as it continued to grow, remained unbound due in part to its authors being anonymous and often crafting fictional circumstances. This act of community storytelling that I stumbled across on a ‘wandering without intent’ stands as example of the positive social reinforcements that this method of wandering can bring into a designer’s research practice and in-turn slow their process down to appreciate and focus on the minute things in our society. Approaching this queery from the margins allowed me to see and uncover something that might normally be passed off as mundane or as a silly children’s story, as an important aspect of what our communities are potentially lacking. In approaching this queery from outside the binaries of who is commonly associated as practitioner in design research efforts, and following Frayling’s call for transdisciplinary research, I was able to uncover aspects of the public without ever having to run any sort of a test or analysis. Seeing this instance where community was organizing and supporting one another through storytelling was more than just an observation, it was METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 26 the uncovering of an opportunity for me to enact possibilities of ‘other’-ness in my future design interventions and research. Having the opportunity to input a piece of my identity into this community story gave me a heightened sense of connection during the process of wandering. Furthermore, it began to shift the act ‘wandering without intent’ into ‘wandering with intent’. Another activity I engaged in throughout my queery is collecting over two-hundred different notes during my walks. They often cover a range of different communications, take many different forms such as, extensive reflections of public FIG 10: NOTEBOOKS I FILLED UP EACH SEMESTER WITH OBSERVATIONS, POEMS, CRITIQUES, QUESTIONS, 2018-2020 FIG 11: SMALL ASSORTMENT OF SOME OF MY MESSY OBSERVATIONS, POEMS, CRITIQUES, QUESTIONS, 2018-2020 METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 27 November 3, 2018 at 10:00 AM November 16, 2019 at 7:50 PM CALL ATTENTION TO my design is attempting to make people WHAT TO DO uncomfortable… WHAT NOT TO DO HOW TO ACT HOW NOT TO ACT I want design to be uncomfortable. I want design to make the public uncomfortable. I want it to be proclamatory and provoking. I want it to call out the person that won’t move to the back of the bus to make room for others, I want it to teach the kids making fun of someone on the subway a lesson and at the same time I want design to be a generative, amalgamation of lived experiences. I want design to be grounds for November 20, 2018 at 1:43 AM It all started with a Van I saw in Berlin, Germany about a year ago. Since then I’ve been shooting images of cars vans buses that bring me back to that moment of discovery of a visual venecular of a city through a method of transportation. Discovering this “beat” or “melody” Maybe I could create form/sign out thing that I can start filling out for stranger encounters? people to share their most intimate experiences. I don’t want us to look at communication design from an objective standpoint. I want us to communicate with design, to have the most difficult of conversations. Paint the word faggot across my back because for almost 8 years I didn’t talk about a word that was being attached to the physical space I was taking up. I was merely an observer, I absolved that word instead of questioning those who attached it to me. We need to have those difficult, uncomfortable, awkward conversations. We need to stop being so fucking afraid of taking action. November 30, 2018 at 10:43 AM What is the role of communication design in reflecting and documenting the complex rhythms of everyday life, and how might a communication design practice offer meaningful junctures of interception (intervention?) and redirection to the everyday? *fill in the gaps between relationality *what are the terms between the spaces?? FIG 12: DIGITAL OBSERVATIONS, POEMS, CRITIQUES, QUESTIONS FROM MY NOTES APPLICATION, 2018-2020 METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 28 November 19, 2019 at 7:49 PM January 16, 2020 at 7:18 PM Why’s it gotta be gay? DO YOU Cause it’s been straight for so long. “Okay but KNOW why do you have to make it about your sexuality? WHO YOU Why can’t the design just speak for itself?” For starters, I never had queer role models ARE? growing up. I never had anything to look up to AN INQUIRY INTO URBAN LANDSCAPES and relate myself to. The isolation, confusion INTO CRAFTING IDENTITY THROUGH and doubt I had instilled in myself from a young age was due in part to the lack of representation PAYING $40,000 TO FIND MYSELF? in mainstream media, in public spaces, in the FINDING MYSELF BETWEEN A $40,000 DIPLOMA way we talk about gender and relationships and sexuality. In my mind at a young age I had already told myself and come to the conclusion that my sexuality and desires would have to remain a secret. Visibility is power and for as long as I’m on this earth I will continue to make it about my queerness because my queerness is where I get my power, my drive. My queerness is where I think, where I’m at home, where I’m myself. My queerness allows the limitlessness of imagining a new world, one where we’re not defined by our sexualities, genders, but one where we can recognize and respect that they’re an integral part of what makes us human and we can’t dictate what that looks like from person to person, nor should we ever try to. September 10, 2019 at 6:32 PM THE WAY THAT I VIEW LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION ARE INTEGRAL AND CENTRAL TO MY COMMUNICATION DESIGN RESEARCH PRACTICE. A CULMINATION OF YEARS OF BULLYING AND BEING TOLD THAT MY IDENTITY ISN’T VALID IS WHAT MAKES ME THE EMPATHETIC COMMUNICATION DESIGNER. I EMBODY MY PRACTICE BECAUSE OF EVERYTHING IVE BEEN EXPOSED TO. IF I DIDNT HAVE THOSE EXPERIENCES I DONT BELIEVE ID BE THE SAME TYPE OF DESIGNER I AM TODAY. I WOULDNT BE INTERESTED IN THE SAME SPACES. September 19, 2019 at 7:56 AM Walking to work with a plant I’m met with softer eyes in this dim city FIG 12: DIGITAL OBSERVATIONS, POEMS, CRITIQUES, QUESTIONS FROM MY NOTES APPLICATION, 2018-2020 METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 29 created individually and takes on a different tone, for example: in a note titled ‘Observations’ I list out cross-streets and specific observations made there. Transforming my observation to story and linking it to place. In this note I consider an “observation” as anything which seems significant enough to interrupt my wanderings. The majority of these observations are happy or positive interruptions, for example one entry says: November 3, 2018 at 10:00 AM Brunswick and 8th - A young woman who is walking past an older man sitting on a park bench turns to tell him that he has the best seat in the whole city. He motions and pats the empty spot beside him and invites the woman to take a break from her walk. She sits down and spends a couple minutes to rest. They don’t exchange many words, just both take in the beautiful sunshine before it sets. She eventually gets up and tells the man that it was nice to meet him and to enjoy the rest of his night. She shakes his hand and continues on her walk.” Another entry reads: FIG 13: J.SINGLER, “BRUNSWICK AND 8TH”, 2018, NOTE. | FIG 14: J.SINGLER, “16TH AND ONTARIO”, 2018, NOTE. interactions, short snippets of a thoughts, lists, things that I overhear. Each note is November 3, 2018 at 10:00 AM 16th & Ontario - Witnessed a little boy screaming at the top of his lungs as he whipped down the sidewalk on his shiny, (presumably) new, bicycle with training wheels in-tact. His Dad was running promptly behind him, in fear, and desperately trying to catch up. Dad finally reaches the boy to help him stop, but at this point the little boy was crying. Nearby strangers at the park clapped and cheered him on for surviving what was possibly the scariest thing he had experienced in his short few years on this earth. The little boy looks up at his Dad for reassurance and proceeds to grin through the tears. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 30 These short observations become ways of me better connecting my observations with the public realm. By positioning the public realm as practitioner and expert, I have to make sure that I am looking for different ways of relating to its constituents from an observational standpoint. Another way that I seek out ways of connecting to the public realm is by conducting my writing while wandering. Wherever I can, I will open up my written documents on my phone and proceed to add, edit, rewrite my thoughts while I am practicing my wanderings throughout Vancouver. This method of thinking through my written reflections while I wander is an exercise that not only proves to be generative in the way that it forces me to produce and work on my writing, but it also has also been solutions focused. I enter this head space in order to work through issues; in my research, a creative block, or any general confusion I am struggling with, to eventually reach some sort of a solution, conclusion or better sense of direction. Similar to wandering without intent, wandering with intent was a way of introducing familiarity or routine into my walks. As I explained, the basis of wandering as a method for my research was to walk down and explore new paths, however, in the context of wandering with intent, I would routinely visit a site that was initially discovered on one of my wandering without intent explorations. The first example of this was through the photo typologies, which I began shooting and collecting. I collected over ten-thousand photographs throughout my wanderings. Some of which never turned into a particular typology or project (FIG 15-16), and some that acted as the conception for an eventual design intervention. This is where the wandering with intent starts to take form. I will become transfixed on a particular form or subject in Vancouver that I do not formally vocalize to myself or establish in my studio critiques; instead I present groups of these photos to workshops to see how they will contextualize and attempt to understand their relations for themselves. FIG 15: J. SINGLER, SIGN TYPOLOGY THAT DIDN'T TAKE FORM, 2019. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE FIG 16: J. SINGLER, PARKETTE TYPOLOGY DIDN'T TAKE FORM, 2019. 31 Early in my research I began shooting photos of vehicles around the city that emitted a certain story to me and followed similar themes of colour and texture. The vehicles that I was taking photos of seemed to be ones primarily manufactured during the 1970s-1990s. While shooting this typology, later named “Van-couver”, I was never concerned with researching a vehicle’s manufacturing year before deciding to take a photo of it. The decision to take a photo of a particular vehicle would be made while wandering and coming across a vehicle that had consistent visual and emotive qualities. In reflecting on “Van-couver” I am intentionally choosing not to focus on the act of photography, or the physicality of the photograph as one might assume in my presentation of a photo typology. During my queery, wandering; whether it is conducted with, or without intent, creates opportunities for me to be- FIG 17: J. SINGLER, “VAN-COUVER”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 32 FIG 18: J. SINGLER, “NUMBERS”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. FIG 19: J. SINGLER, “DOORS”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 33 FIG 20: J. SINGLER, “ATTENTIVE TO THE SEARCH”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. FIG 21: J. SINGLER, “A GOOD NEIGHBOUR...”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. FIG 22: J. SINGLER, “LEFT YOU A NOTE”, 2018-2020. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 34 gin building extensions off of my own identity as it relates to my design choices. The photo typologies collected during my wanderings were an opportunity for me to explore visual aesthetic qualities that resonate with my aesthetic as a communication designer. Outside of school, I collect and am inspired by, a plethora of 1950s-1980s design artefacts like typewriters, alarm clocks, radios, and magazines. Much like the photo typologies that I produce, I pull inspiration from these time periods to play with identity. I play with elements like colour, typographic treatments, textures and more to inform my design aesthetic and in this case the photo typologies produced during my wanderings. Another typology that I began shooting involved collecting photos of the different treatments for signage that alerts community members to ‘pick up after their dogs’. While collecting these photos during my exercises of wandering with intent I was able to connect and understand these communities on a different level, potentially one that is more socio-economic focused. I was able to start collecting information and forming opinions on these neighborhoods through close observation of the graphic treatments used by individuals in the neighbourhood to communicate amongst one another. For example, in the Shaughnessy Heights neighbourhood, where the average annual household income is $777,184 (City of Vancouver, 2016), I found an iron-clad stake in the ground with a picture of a dog taking a poop and the words “NO!” above it’s head (FIG 23). In contrast, just off Commercial-Drive, in the neighbourhood Grandview-Woodland, where the average annual household income is $76,400 (City of Vancouver, 2016), I found a more makeshift, photo-copied piece of paper stapled to a plank of wood (FIG 24). Small observations like these that I made on my wanderings allowed me to begin postulating socio-economic situations without having to check census statistics first. Furthermore, this approach of getting to know the inner workings of a neighbourhood, through wandering, affords me the opportunity to approach my interventions from less of a calculated, bureaucratic approach, which brings me closer towards Frayling’s ‘design-lead call to “involve care” FIG 23: SIGN IN SHAUGHNESSY HEIGHTS. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH, 2019. and begins an attempt to dismantle hierarchy. These careful observations of contrasting neighbourhoods supply me with a unique point-of-view because of the way that I have situated the public realm as an expert of their daily operations. To follow the aim of this research to practice care, the queery does not treat the neighbourhoods like a petri-dish to extract statistical data from and create municipal documents, instead it uses ground-level observations to begin crafting an understanding. Wandering with and without intent allows me the opportunity to identity sites and situations of possibility and offers ample time to properly reflect on how this intervention will inform my identity and design practice. FIG 24: SIGN IN GRANDVIEW-WOODLAND. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH, 2020. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 35 (2) Wandering to intervene My method of wandering to intervene is unique in the way that it disrupts a system with the aim of initiating change. Instead of “introducing familiarity or routine”, which was the case I presented in wandering with/without intent, wandering to intervene is unique in that it aims to use embodied design interventions to uncover moments of opportunity that engage the public in a conversation. In the queery these conversations address a variety of hegemonic structures such as; municipal regulatory processes, gender and sexual binaries, and the epistemology of the design field. This is typically the stage in my process where I feel confident enough in my wandering with/without intent experiments to implement a more explicit intervention that aims at making an unauthorized probe to provoke a conversation aimed at initiating some sort of preferred pivot in behaviour. Examples of wandering to intervene can be found in Gordon C.C. Douglas’ text “The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism”. DIY urbanism, sometimes referred to as Tactile urbanism is defined as “...unauthorized yet intentionally functional and civic-minded improvements to urban spaces, in forms inspired by official streetscape planning and design elements” (Douglas, 2018: 3). Examples outlined by Douglas are conducted as quick, inexpensive, guerrilla interventions by individuals who are familiar in navigating the particular city that they enact the intervention in. As these individuals navigate their city with intent, or destination in mind, their familiarity of the city allows them to unveil opportunities for improvement. In one example titled “Astoria Scum River Bridge”, Jason Eppink and artist Posterchild designed and installed a small bridge in Brooklyn, New York, to help pedestrians cross over a leaky pipe that: “submerged more than a hundred square feet of heavily-trafficked sidewalk under a festering cesspool of standing water…and as winter approached, the river iced over and became particularly hazardous to cross” (Eppink, 2009) (FIG 24). This Tactile urbanism intervention is an example of the public finding spaces of opportunity through wandered familiarity. Eppink and Posterchild uncovered a moment to install a design intervention which would later spark conversation with the community. This design intervention garnered the attention of NYC Council Member Peter F. Vallone, Jr., and company Amtrack (Ibid.). Within a month of the “Astoria Scum River Bridge” intervention, “Amtrack workers began construction work…quickly routed [Astoria Scum River] off the sidewalk, and within a couple months…installed [custom-made grates] to complete the project. The bridge, no longer needed, was de-installed…and returned to the curb whence it came” (Ibid.). Herein lies evidence of this intervention garnering positive attention and affecting legitimate change from the bureaucratic system that it originally opposed. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 36 FIG 25: JASON EPPNIK, “ASTORIA SCUM RIVER BRIDGE”, 2009. In episode #372: The Help-Yourself City on the podcast 99% Invisible, hosted by Roman Mars, Gordon C.C. Douglas shares that when he interviewed people for his book “The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism”, he noticed a trend. The people conducting these Tactile urban interventions, were: “…predominantly white, predominantly male, and a lot of them had backgrounds in design and planning, or at least some sort of professional education…and had quite a bit of privilege, that they were aware that they had. Whether they were thinking about it explicitly or not, makes it a heck of a lot easier for them to go out and feel comfortable at three in the morning painting a bike lane down the street, or climbing a light post to hang up a sign…” (Mars + Douglas, 2018). Roman Mars responds to Douglas’ noting of privilege by saying that this observation could be looked at in one of two ways: (1) This situation represents a type of privilege that people should be mindful of, or (2) It is incumbent on people with privilege to take action…rather than just resting and profiting [of said privilege] (Ibid.). For my own practice of wandering with intent I take into consideration the place of privilege when I approach a design intervention. In “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!”, which I later unpack in detail in a case study, I researched the history and usage of the word ‘faggot’, to make sure I understood the magnitude of the word and the lives that were lost over it. Before enacting my design intervention, I also ensured that I was aware of my privilege as a white cis man, positioned and designing on the stolen territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səlilw ̓ ətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 37 (Squamish), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Nations. I practiced my awareness and recognized my privilege by listening to stories from queer people of colour and queer Indigenous people in my community, listening to their perspective; learning about the Indigenous Two-spirit identity and adversities that these marginal communities face on a daily basis. Although I can never relate to what a life in their bodies may look or feel, I can ensure that the design I put out into the world projects a futurity where people no longer profit off of their privilege but instead use it to take action against dismantling societal hegemony. (2) Sorting, Resorting, Changing Contexts, Reflecting After conducting the wandering and collecting phases of my research I use a method of sorting and resorting in conjunction with my design process. I conflate the act of sorting through materials with physical making, by preforming these two acts together. For example, in the exploration of childhood photos, I was sorting through different family artefacts, stories and memories and actively responding to them through my design work as I went along. In the case of “Fruitcake” (FIG 26), I was sorting through a pile of photographs when I came across the original photo, pre-digital manipulation. I then actively respond to it by tapping into a stream of consciousness that is aimed at reflecting on my identity at that age. This photograph would have been around the time I started showing more effeminate gestures in the way I was expressing myself; with my hand on my popped-out hip and attempt to FIG 26: J. SINGLER, “FRUITCAKE”, 2019. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 38 imitate Elvis Presley’s famous lip curl. I recall the photograph as a performance of a character and energy, an energy in which I would later categorize or come to associate as ‘fruity’ or part of my identity as a gay man. This sorting and self-reflection has been a constant in my practice ever since my undergrad and was potentially first explored in a project of mine titled “Neue Heimat” (2016). This project was an exercise where I reflected and sorted through boxes of family artefacts and discovered a single written story that chronicles my Great Grandfather, Grandmother, Aunt and Uncle’s fleet from Austria-Hungary during WWII. I used this project as an opportunity to sort through, and in a way, catalogue a plethora of family artefacts that were collecting dust. However in pulling out my typewriter and playing with tapping into my free form/stream of consciousness by asking myself “what comes to mind when seeing this photo” I wrote a reflection on each of the artefacts. In this project I used my typewriter to speak candidly about relationships with my family members and to explore how my identity was shaped by each of them, and at times to even to say certain things to them that I never had the chance to. “Neue Heimat” was only the beginning of establishing this method as a vital component of my design process. To better understand why my reflective writing explorations are integral to my practice efforts I turn again to Frayling’s rtD. As Frayling states: “Research is a practice, writing is a practice, doing science is a practice, doing design is a practice, making art is practice. The brain controls the hand which informs the brain.” (Frayling, 1993: 4) Through my free-form, reflective writing exercises I am able to harness Frayling’s consideration that the “brain controls the hand which informs the brain” (Ibid.). FIG 27: J. SINGLER, “NEUE HEIMAT”, 2016. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 39 FIG 28: J. SINGLER, “WE ARE EVERYWHERE!”, 2020. MANIPULATED PHOTOGRAPH. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 40 FIG 29: J. SINGLER, “MASCULINITY”, 2019. MANIPULATED PHOTOGRAPH. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 41 FIG 30: J. SINGLER, “YAAAAAAS QWEEN”, 2019. MANIPULATED PHOTOGRAPH. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 42 In an exploration called “Loose Leaf”, I wandered the city with the intent of collecting freshly fallen leaves that interest me. I then put these leaves through my typewriter and engaged in a free-form writing exercise. Sometimes it is a response to where I found the leaf, sometimes a response to physical aspects of said leaf, and sometimes it is an issue or concept I am working through, perhaps surrounding my own identity. For example, with (FIG 31) of “Loose Leaf” I was working through my relationship with my body and more specifically, my body image. I used one of the leaves I collected while wandering and initially put it through my inkjet printer to experiment with printing a picture of me at a nude beach in the summer. I then fed that leaf through my typewriter to insert a reflection I made on the same day that the photo was taken: FIG 31: J. SINGLER, “BRUNSWICK BEACH”, 2019. MIXED MEDIA ON LEAF. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 43 July 19 2019 at 5:11 PM Brunswick The cloth was no longer rubbing against every imperfection, highlighting each of my insecurities, I am forced to confront my own visual and mental representation of my physical embodiment. I throw my head back and take a swig from my tall Old Milwaukee and stare out at the beautiful naked mountains, without cloth, without any need to cover themselves. Mother Nature, as damaged, imperfect, dimpled as she is, still stands tall, her beauty towering over me in this moment. Each sound she makes, unique from the last. She is still proud to show off every inch of herself, despite the amount of abuse we’ve exposed her to. In this moment I feel free. I am free. I am free. FIG 32: J. SINGLER, “BRUNSWICK BEACH”, 2019. DIGITALLY RENDERED POEM. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 44 FIG 33: J. SINGLER, “LOOSE LEAF”, 2016-2020. LEAVES + TYPEWRITER. This act of sorting, resorting and eventually exercising reflection in my design process is crucial for me in coming to some sort of a conclusive finding. In this phase of my research I am able to work through design to come to some sort of a discovery or knowledge generated, most commonly about the inner-workings of myself or a specific community. I use my reflective writing on the ‘inner-workings’, as I refer to them, of not only the design field, but my identity, to encourage a shift in the perception of self. These reflective writing exercises helped me identify personal biases that I needed to address. In reflection I was able to better understand the metaphorical shield that I bring into the public realm on a daily basis. This shield tends to effect the interactions I have with strangers, and forces me to assume strangers as predator, so to speak. Through these deep, reflective writing exercises I am able to identify that I put this shield up because growing up as a queer kid I often found myself having to fight for and protect myself from bullies and peers who wanted to question my identity, during a time when I was still trying to form it. In making these observations in my writing, I was able to enact “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” with a clearer and more open mind, not assuming that everyone I came across while wearing the vest was a predator. In the following case study, I explore how situating the public realm as expert in my research through design queery I was able to begin objectively viewing my identity in relation to the design interventions being produced. METHODS • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 46 Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a Atlas on the back of a FIG 34: J. SINGLER, WEARING “ATLAS ON THE BACK OF A FAGGOT!” ALONG DAVIE STREET, VANCOUVER. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH. 2019. Case Study: “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” In defining my problem area as the over saturation and dominance of hetero white cis men in the design field, I set out to use my queer lens to examine design research in partnership with and context of the public realm. In working with the public as a partner in my queery, I am able to gather first-hand findings on affective queer strategies that can help implement a shift in rtD that gives affordance to the power of our personal identities in our design choices. “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” was conducted during the summer semester of 2019, wherein I removed the sleeves of a denim jacket and painted the word ‘Faggot!’ across the upper back (FIG 37). Through a series of intentional design choices, I set out to make an embodied design exploration that plays with fixed gender binaries and socially acceptable ways of conducting oneself in public. I wore this denim vest while I wandered around Vancouver during Pride weekend without a shirt underneath, consciously taking into account the interactions I was having. Throughout my wandering while wearing the vest, I noticed shifts in interaction depending on my location in the city. This intentionally designed, embodied artefact was able to give form to the queer theories and queer strategies that I was researching and furthermore, was able to act as a vessel for interaction between the public with these theories and strategies. At each point during this exploration I ensured to practice care and intentionality in my design choices. (1) Starting at conception of the project with the choice and research of the term “Faggot!”, (2) With the typographic/visual aesthetic choices, (3) During the research/gathering of underground queer culture references, (4) During the eventual interactions the vest had with the public realm. 1. Word choice & conception In choosing the word ‘Faggot’ with an exclamation point, I wanted to ensure I was being shocking enough to capture the attention of the public, but not to a degree that might eliminate any desire to participate with the vest, as my intentions as a communication designer are always to generate conversation, discussion or debate to some degree. Another intention behind “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” was to address the visibility and acceptance of queer people being unabashedly queer in public. The keyword here is unabashedly queer. In using the word queer as opposed to gay, as mentioned in my introduction, I am making a clear and intentional distinction. This distinction is one that I arrived to during my research. Deciding to now identify as queer allows a greater affordance of resistance to the more assimilative qualities of a gay identity. As I discuss in greater detail in my introduction the gay identity often fashions itself towards more conservative aspirations of fitting into CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 48 FIG 35: J. SINGLER, WEARING “ATLAS ON THE BACK OF A FAGGOT!” ALONG DAVIE STREET, VANCOUVER. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS. 2019. societal structures. So, in choosing to identify and label myself as a “Faggot!” I am actively pushing against normalizing and/or suppressing my queer identity. The queery intends to extract and highlight possibilities and strengths of my identity as it pertains to my practice as a designer, and with “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I achieve this through the reclamation of a term often said in malice to make a statement that dismantles expectations of how one should approach expressing their identity in public. With this intervention, I am also interrupting the possible belief that my desires as a queer individual end at the right to get married or to serve in a country’s military by extending it to a more radical idea that resists hegemonic structures in their entirety. In recognizing and understanding the North American context and weight of the term Faggot, I wanted to ensure I was reclaiming and using it in a way that would elicit a conversation around visibility and acceptance of queers interacting with space in authentic ways. In “Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories Since 1600”, David Higg’s claims: “…in English Canada in 1998 the word ‘faggot’ said with a smile can be a term of complicity among gays while pronounced with venom it is an abu- CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 49 FIG 36: J.SINGLER, “ATLAS ON THE BACK OF A FAGGOT” IN-PROCESS, DIGITAL RENDER FIG 37: J.SINGLER, “ATLAS ON THE BACK OF A FAGGOT” IN-PROCESS, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH. CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 50 sive term” (Higgs, 1998: 4). Through careful consideration of the term faggot in my own life, and research into the history of the term in a broader North American context, I felt reclaiming and using the term in a playful way would be both appropriate and work at dismantling the expectations of what is right and wrong in expressing identity in the public realm. 2. Typographic / Aesthetic choices Earlier I made the claim that the queery and more specifically, my process as a queer designer is both meticulous and intentional. In “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I made the decision to go with a typeface designed by Alan Meeks in 1976 called Candice. Candice is a typeface that is described as: “A groovy swirl of a font...that looks like an ice cream sundae topped with whipped cream” (Lino-type.com). Although Meeks is a hetero white cis man, I knew that the historical context of this font held enough power to represent this project. Candice is a typeface that was designed during the 1970’s, which is considered the era of disco, this typeface was born during a revolutionary age of sexual exploration. In Diana Mi’s thesis: “Gendering the Disco Inferno: Sexual Revolution, Liberation, and Popular Culture in 1970s America” (2010), she extrapolates Josh Kun’s 2005 concept of “re-imagining the present social world” (Kun, 2005) by stating: “Disco offered a space in which an array of gender and sexual identities were possible, a space in which the social world of heterosexual, masculine aggression and female sexual passivity could be ‘re-imagined’ to also include practices such as homosexuality, androgyny, and female sexual agency…” (Kun as cited in Mi, 2005). Choosing a typeface that was born out of the re-imaginative era of the 1970s was my way of embedding an additional narrative into the design of the vest and being intentional and careful with my design decisions. I ensured every detail put into “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” was, in some way, directly playing a role in dismantling public thoughts of sexual and gender identity or alluded to a less conservative alignment around these topics. FIG 38: ALAN MEEKS, LINO-TYPE “CANDICE” TYPEFACE. CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 51 3. Gay / Queer Culture Queer culture is born from demonstrations such as Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riots in 1966, which further lead to the Stonewall Riots in 1969 where queer people were more frequently using protest to speak out against systematic discrimination and suppression of their identity. These demonstrations were often spearheaded by transgender folx and were unsystematic acts of defiance aimed at disrupting and (FROM TOP TO BOTTOM) FIG 39/40: PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BC GAY & LESBIAN ARCHIVE, CITY OF VANCOUVER initiating change. These acts of protest were given form through cardboard signs, t-shirts, pins amongst other pieces of design ephemera. Perhaps the most widely recognized piece of queer design activism is the political poster “SILENCE=DEATH”, created by Avram Finkelstein with Jorge Socarras, Chris Lione, Charles Kreloff, Oliver Johnston, and Brian Howard during the AIDS crisis in 1987. This collective group decided against using any photography in the poster in an attempt to bolster the power of typography and language to reach a wider audience (Finkelstein, 2013). In an interview about this poster, Finkelstein says, “The poster comes for you in ways art simply can’t. The poster comes for you where you live” (Ibid.). This was also my intention with “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!”–to use the power of typography, across my back to embody and share a message across the city. During my time wearing the vest out in public I was met with a variety of different interactions: people stopping to take pictures with me, people laughing with me (sometimes at me), people telling me stories about their journey with the word, people giving me high fives and hugs. Overall, the vest intervention was met with quite a wide range of different interactions. Finkelstein’s “SILENCE=DEATH” poster was merely the beginning of queer design protest becoming more outspoken and direct with its approach. With “SILENCE=DEATH” Finkelstein leaves behind any chance of being stealth or subtle to instead push loud imagery in order to initiate some sort of societal action against the crisis at the time. Finkelstein’s decision to use the pink triangle in combination with the words “SILENCE=DEATH” creates a compelling paradigm that connects it to treatment of queer individuals during the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the pink triangle was worn by homosexual, bisexual and transgender FIG 41: HARVEY FINKLESTEIN, “SILENCE=DEATH”,1987. individuals to identify them (Plant, 1988). In my experiment “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I am taking Finkelstien’s approach and reinterpreting it in a more context more personal to my own journey and associations with a queer identity. Keeping gay culture underground is a necessary survival tactic that continues to help keep vulnerable gay individuals safe. In Vincent Andrews’ “The Leatherboy Handbook” he presents the Hanky Code, which is still to this day recognized as one of the most popular underground gay communication strategies in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe (Andrews, 2008). The Hanky Code, which is also sometimes referred to as the Handkerchief Code or Flagging is a strategy that gay men who are interested in casual sexual encounters use to signal their prefer- CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 52 ences to one another in public. In Eric Darnell Pritchard’s “An Introduction to “Sartorial Politics, Intersectionality, and Queer Worldmaking” (2017), he discusses the importance and role that fashion and signifiers like the Hanky Code have in queer culture: “Fashion does and has always mattered in queer worldmaking: there is the 1950s and 1960s ‘homophile’ movement activism of the Mattachine Society and their deployment of sartorial respectability as a tactic of advocacy for gay men and women; the function of different coloured handkerchiefs and bandanas and various forms of gendered clothing as a solicitation or expression of desire; the rainbow, a symbol of LGBT rights activism, will be forever fashioned into buttons, bracelets, earrings, sweaters, gowns, and other clothing and accessories…” (Pritchard, 2017: 4). FIG 42: HAL FISCHER, “GAY SEMIOTICS”, 1977. CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 53 Here I believe Pritchard is expressing the fact that fashion and textiles hold a vital role in helping queer people incorporate and embody their queer identity into their everyday. In “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I am incorporating and embodying these principles of my identity into a piece of clothing that correspondingly acts as a piece of design activism. Maryam Heidaripour and Laura Forlano define design activism in their paper “Formgiving to Feminist Futures as Design Activism” (2018), as: “…the enforcement of positive socio-political change by intervening in daily lives [through] design interventions such as physical objects, embodied experiences, and affective engagements” (Heidaripour & Forlano, 2018). In taking a more blatant or obvious approach in my act of design activism with the “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” vest, I was able to better understand the importance of having the freedom to express oneself through an act of embodied formgiving. Where the Hanky Code is concerned I believe it is a quiet piece of design activism. It intervenes into the daily lives of gay men to form community and connection through stealthily orchestrated signs and signifiers. Another example mentioned in Hal Fischer’s book “Gay Semiotics” is the signal of wearing an earring on a specific ear to signal to other men that you are gay, without drawing attention. Both the Hanky Code and fashion signifiers like the earing were tactics of stealth that had originally been designed to work in a public realm that at the time widely disagreed with the identity of gay men. These semiotic modes of communicating between gay men helped keep them safe and hidden. In “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I wanted to explore what a mode of communication amongst queer individuals looks like today. With this shift from a gay identity to a queer identity I wanted to explore what tactics like the Hanky Code would look like in our current climate, what is appropriate in 2020? How far can the envelope be pushed in the context of Vancouver? With the overabundance of gay dating apps and other social media it seems that our society has become desensitized to most things that used to be considered shocking. At this point I should address that the majority of the communication strategies I have presented as reference for thus far for “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” are gay male centred. I am aware that Transgender and other marginalized individuals under the LGBTQ+ umbrella may use underground strategies of their own; however, in the interest of discovering, understanding this gay to queer shift and finding ways to embed it into this queery, it is only appropriate to speak from what I know. Today in many North American city centres, there is a greater allowance for louder and more direct forms of gender and sexual expression on a daily basis. It has become more common to witness individuals step outside of the socially sanctioned time carved out for Pride festivities during the summer months to be more visibly queer in the everyday public realm. Although I would like to argue there is CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 54 more tolerance for people being queer in public, it is a difficult thing to measure, as the tolerance of a queer individual interacting with space depends on a variety of different factors between the individual and the space they are inhabiting. One way I have observed queer people testing the levels of tolerance, similarly to my approach in “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!”, is again through clothing and fashion. LOCKWOOD51 is an apparel company that has made significant efforts to create bags, t-shirts, swimsuits, pins and more with phrases that each act as a piece of design activism. Their apparel features phrases like: “STAY QUEER AS FUCK”, “WE ARE EVERYWHERE”, “I LOVE DICK”, “BUTCH PLEASE”, (FIG 43) along with a variety of other more radical terminology to outwardly display the identity of the individual wearing the garment. LOCKWOOD51 is just one in a wave of different queer companies and independent queer artists who are making, creating, and selling fashion and other apparel that unabashedly push queer centric themes and content without apology. With the knowledge that the queer community has long operated and interacted with space from a more underground or stealth approach, I was able to better appreciate the need for queer people to be louder and more visible. I was also able to conduct the wearing of this vest with a sincere feeling of gratitude to queer elders for dedicating their lives to make something like this possible. The analysis of queer culture and its ability to duck in and out of the shadows was a strong influence for me as I developed my design process. As a designer I find it crucial to know one’s space, to read the space and to understand when and how to use design to speak up. Design can be a powerful tool if harnessed properly, and within the context of complex social issues, I feel it even more imperative to be intentional. Judith Butler and the “Masquerade” In Judith Butler’s text “Gender Trouble”, she addresses and defines the social construction of gender as a performative act or a masquerade (Butler, 1990). She indicates that in order to assimilate with hegemonic heterosexual public discourse, the woman and also often the homosexual man have to participate in a masquerade with the public realm (Ibid.). Furthermore, Butler indicates that this masquerade is required in order to have opportunities to be involved in these acts of public discourse and conversation amongst other hetero white cis men who make up the hegemonic public structures (Ibid.). With “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” I am directly playing with this idea of the masquerade as a place to experiment with the possibilities that arise when we lift the veil on gender performance in public discourse. I wore the vest around Vancouver to explore and play with societal expectations of how I am supposed to act and conduct myself as a gay man in public. I find when not wearing this vest that I have the privilege of sinking into the background and passing as a hetero cis man in a lot of public situations. By wearing this vest that left absolutely nothing FIG 43: PHOTOS USED WITH PERMISSION FROM LOCKWOOD51, 2020. CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 55 to the imagination, I was able to understand and play with what happened when I was vulnerably myself in public. Still, I acknowledge that as a white cis man I am perhaps granted more freedom to do this than other marginalized individuals. Walking about Vancouver, wandering on different modes of transportation, by foot, taxi, public transit all while wearing this denim vest and nothing to cover my torso, I was met with people’s honest and first reaction of me. As mentioned, this provided me with a multitude of different reactions and interactions. One interaction that sticks out as the most memorable was a middle-aged woman who approached me while inside a fast food restaurant waiting for our food. At this point we had wandered down by Main Street & Terminal Avenue in Vancouver which is a strange collision of different transforming neighbourhoods, quite a distance from the hub of pride activities. Judging by our location, I was uncertain of what my interaction would be with this woman as she approached me. To my surprise she asked if she could take a picture with me and told me and my partner about her son who is gay. Judging by the conversation we had, her son coming out as gay was somewhat fresh news to her. It was the gathering of stories and interactions like these-- high-fives and hugs from strangers--that left me more reassured that, although I map certain areas of the city as more dangerous or uncertain, queer individuals and our allies are everywhere, even when you are not able to see them. With Butler’s masquerading proposition, “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” poses the question: When we no longer resort to putting on our mask before we step outside, and instead we embark on a frank, honest, and explorative process with the public, what are our findings? About the public? About ourselves? About design? The act of “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” was both a removing of the mask, but also removing any possibility for me to sink into the background as a hetero cis man. Removing the mask was an exaggerated departure from the way I normally conduct myself in the public realm and was done so intentionally in order to garner receptive feedbacks to later be investigated. 4. Cognitive-mapping/Counter-cartography methods, eventual interactions “A cognitive map (sometimes called a mental map or mental model) is a type of mental representation which serves an individual to acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment.” (Tolman, 1948: 189–208) The act of cognitively-mapping one’s city is an inherent act for a queer person. It is an attempt to better understand and situate oneself amongst spaces that refuse to make adequate and appropriate room for us to be or see ourselves. While wearing CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 56 “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot!” in the public I was consciously and unconsciously mapping out the city as I navigated it. For example, I knew that I had changed neighbourhoods by simply judging the reactions on people’s faces as I walked past them. As I wandered from Davie Street, which is Vancouver’s designated ‘Gaybourhood’; a neighbourhood that is frequented and primarily concentrated with LGBTQ+ folx (Ghaziani, 2014), I first noticed and made cognitive note when a group of three men started whispering and laughing. At this point I was at the intersection of Davie and Granville, just outside of the Gaybourhood. Moments similar to this, like my experience taking public transit while wearing the vest started to solidify a unique and personal map of the city for me. This map was unique to the consideration that I was wearing a vest with the word ‘Faggot’ painted across the back and nothing underneath. An individual may carry with them different cognitive maps of a city for different purposes used at different times. As it’s described in the book “Queers in Space: Narratives of Place–Subjective and Collective” (1997): “Each persons “map” is usually part autobiography, part mythology, and part the embodiment of tensions concerning forms of marginalization, such as sexual politics, gender, race, ethnicity, or culture. But rather than representing a fairly gestalt, each map constitutes a page in the ongoing atlas of individual life and communal history.” (Ingram, Bouthillette, Retter, 1997: 56) While wearing the vest I was able to cognitively interact with the city in a way that I had not been able to prior. I collected the micro impressions of stranger’s reactions as entry points in a cognitive map of how I later now understand the city when I am not wearing the vest. Now, I operate through Vancouver differently, remembering the places where a particular interaction happened, or noting certain moments that made me proud while wearing the vest. As I mention in my introduction, the queery is an ever evolving and transformative process. This map that I have been working on is also in-progress. It is not complete, and, in my eyes, it may never be seen as complete. I fully acknowledge that including an incomplete map in the body of master’s dissertation could be seen as an admitting of failure to reach a conclusion. Having said that Halberstam says in “The Queer Art of Failure” that: “Queerness offers the promise of failure as a way of life...but it is up to us whether we choose to make good on that promise in a way that makes a detour around the usual markers of accomplishment and satisfaction.” (Halberstam, 2011: 186) CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 57 By including the following map in-progress, I am, as Halberstam put it, making good on that promise of failure by showing that my work-in-progress, although a “detour around the usual markers of accomplishment and satisfaction” (Ibid.) is still valid within an academic setting and worthy of consideration. Please click the image below or copy the link: https://drive.google.com/ open?id=14BaZR0xFtIvX1xwLT61DTE_80dngGJDf&usp=sharing to view the map in-progress. Note: This map is only visible from a browser on a desktop computer. CASE STUDY • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 58 Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion FIG 44: J.SINGLER, “STUDIO”, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH, 2019. Conclusion Every extension of the research that I conducted over the past two years I have collected and put into a reimagining of the city, of myself, and of the design field. In its inception the queery was premised on welcoming and celebrating failure, attempting to dismantle hierarchies, root for the underdog, and accepts influence and guidance from the strangest of places. Throughout my research I made sure to practice care and intentionality with my design decisions and my interactions with the public realm in order to achieve these aims that the queery was premised on. Speaking honestly, this research journey was not in any way easy. At many times I felt like I had lost sight of myself and my research direction. In stripping back the layers of my identity, along with my beliefs and understandings of design I was able to then conduct my body of research that stands as a journey of reconstructing. In Christano Storni’s paper titled “A Personal Perspective on Research Through Design” he cites Ranulph Glanville when discussing the outcomes of rtD by stating: “What is produced is no longer just knowledge about a phenomenon; it is knowledge about how a design intervention and a phenomenon interact, accepting that as the two met, they are transformed” (Glanville, 2002, as cited in Storni, 2015: 76). The meeting of myself, through my design interventions, made it more evident that the course of my research was an embodied shift in identity, towards one that is more self-aware. In the enactment of my research through design queery (rtDq), I was able to better understand the position that I approach design from, and better understand my process as a queer designer. Bolstering my research approach with an interdisciplinary relationship with the public realm, I was able to leave behind my traditional notions of Research (‘R’) of “white-coated people in laboratories, doing esoteric things with test-tubes…” (Frayling, 1993) and embark on this queery of giving myself over to the line to experiment without boundaries. My research continues to evolve and seek out ways for my queer perspective to address Rawsthorn’s call to “…decide how to express the nuances of our personal identities in our design choices, rather than leaving it up to the cis male establishment that has sustained the ‘man’s world’ of design for so long” (Rawsthorn, 75). 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The body text is set in Freight Text, a typeface designed by Joshua Darden in 2005, published through Garage Fonts under the foundry Phil’s Fonts. The subheads of this document were intentionally set in Clear Sans, a typeface designed by a queer designer. Dan Rhatigan designed this typeface in 2013 for Intel (With Robin Nicholas and George Ryan). The typeface used for the basis of my design intervention “Atlas on the Back of a Faggot” is Candice, a typeface designed by Alan Meeks in 1976. COLOPHON • FAGGOTS ARE THE FUTURE 66 THANK YOU.