APORIA
JOURNEY
The Rebellion of The Visual

by Ying Cao
Bachelor of Economics, Carleton University, 2019
Supervisors: Dr. Chris Jones
A Critical & Process Documentation Paper
Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of
Master Of Design, Emily Carr University Of Art + Design 2021

For my mom and dad.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost I am extremely grateful to my
supervisor, Dr. Chris Jones for his invaluable advice
and patience during my MDes study. His immense
knowledge and plentiful experience have encouraged
me in all the time of my academic research and my
daily life. Also, I want to thank my internal reviewer,
Dr. Katherine Gillieson for her continuous support and
for providing me with critical feedback.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my parents.
I couldn’t have done this without their unwavering love
and support. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks
to my friends for offering unfailing support and love
during my difficult time. Without their tremendous
understanding and encouragement, it would be
impossible for me to complete my study and my thesis.
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CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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CONCLUSION
Visualizing Rebellion

ABSTRACT

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Further Research

INTRODUCTION
Black Sun
The Disequilibrium of The Reality

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APPENDICES

Rebellious Spirit

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THE APORIA MAGAZINE
Beyond The Real
Good Ugly Design

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Socio-Political Communication Tools

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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LIST OF FIGURES

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“In formal logic, a contradiction is the
signal of a defeat; but in the evolution
of real knowledge it marks the first
step in progress towards a victory.”
(Whitehead, 1997)

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ABSTRACT
This thesis presents a creative work called “APORIA”
which is a fictional magazine that engages the
ideological complexities of the current visual age. As
a graphic designer, in addition to understanding how
to use visual language effectively to communicate,
ability to question the interpretations and meanings
established by symbols is especially critical in this
age. I wanted to explore the role and potential of
graphic design in relation to social and political issues,
therefore I am using APORIA magazine as a means
to explore the ways in which graphic design could
interpret possible social and political issues.
In this practice-based exploration, I have
investigated the ways and effects of rebellion from
an interdisciplinary perspective and developed a
rebellious visual communication strategy. APORIA
magazine is a thought tool to break beyond the reality,
a design strategy to break the rules of graphic design
and conventional aesthetics, and a visual practice to
trigger social and political dialogue. Through this
work, I encourage designers to work with a “rebellious
spirit” as a way to explore and create.
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INTRODUCTION

As a graphic designer with an economic background,
I have always been very interested in the relationship
between visual communication and social and political
issues, especially the relationship between visual
communication and ideology. At the same time, as
a Chinese who has lived and studied in Canada for
eight years, the experience of cultural differences
between China and the West also made me realized
the importance of visual communication in the current
era of globalization. Through the reflection and
research on personal experience, cognitive psychology,
and deconstructionism in relation to design, I have
constructed the concept and research framework of the
APORIA project and used it as a means to explore the
potential of visual communication in relation to social
and political issues.

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BLACK SUN
https://images.app.goo.gl/KEM51WKkfEspy71K7

Art class was one of my favorite classes in elementary school.
I remember when I was in the fifth grade, there was an art class
that asked everyone to draw a picture based on the theme of
happy moments. When my classmates were painting mother’s
smiling face, robot, or stuffed toy, I have drawn a big black
circle. When the teacher came to me and asked me what it was,
I told her that it was a warm sun. She smiled, and then she
picked up an orange watercolor pen and drew a circle of the
same size on my paper. She told me that the sun can be painted
in orange or yellow, but not in black. Because there is no black
sun.
This black sun appeared in my mind from time to time when
I became to an adult. Looking back now, I understand why
my art teacher would tell me “there is no black sun”. Chinese
culture is relatively traditional and conservative. Compared
with the personal development that Western education values,
Chinese education places more emphasis on collective
development. Therefore, my teacher as an educator who lived
in this kind of educational system and cultural characteristics,
naturally believed students should not draw a sun in the color
of black.
I have always been a “problem child” since I was young. In
elementary school, I never liked to obey the rules and didn’t
like to accept preaching about obedience. I always like to
challenge the authority of adults through the behavior of
“breaking the rules”, and this has brought me a lot of trouble.
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↑ Figure 2: Film Still from Malèna,
2000

This is the scene in the movie when
Malena smokes and the men fight to
light her cigarette. Chinese movies
rarely show women smoking, so it is
this scene that makes me interested in
cultural differences.

↑ Figure 1: chinese elementary school’s

class room. When I was in primary school,
students were required to put their hands
behind their backs except when raising their
hands and writing.

Since the beginning of junior high school, the advent of
Internet technology has given me a magical door that
provided me a chance to see things that I was curious about.
I was deeply obsessed with western movies and culture ever
since I watched the film Malèna. From the movies, I had
the opportunity to see and experience a completely different
culture and world. At the same time, I also started to use
movies as a way to explore the world.

It is the difference between the culture shown in the movie
and my real life that had given me the opportunity to think in
contradictions. Through the film, the difference created by the
cross-cultural, cross-time, and cross-regional visual experience
has become the trigger for me to think.

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In the summer of 2013, I came to Canada with curiosity and
longing for the western world. I started a completely different
experience on the other side of the earth. From Beijing, the
capital of China, to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, everything
is so disruptive and different. With my inherent worldview and
an open attitude, I immersed myself in a completely different
culture and society.
For various reasons, even though I have shown more passion
for music, art, and writing since I was young, I still chose
economics for my undergraduate study. Growing up in a
socialist country, but receiving an education in economics in
a capitalist country was a very interesting yet contradicted
experience. When I was studying in the early days, I began to
believe that the market economy in capitalism is not only the
freest economic mode but also a reason for the most active
economic performance. However, with more learning and
accumulation of knowledge, I have increasingly doubted and
questioned the authenticity of economics. This is a suspicion
of economic supremacy, a suspicion of the optimal economic
system, a suspicion of progress and civilization.
Economics itself is a discipline about wealth and how wealth is
distributed in the world. It is a structural study through analysis
and theory. After studying economics, I felt more clearly that
this was not my interest. Rather than “what is this world like”
or “why is this world like this”, what I want to explore is “how
could this world be like?” The exploration of the could is
where my passion sits. This is an exploration of possibility, as
the exploration of a world beyond reality. Therefore, design
has become the direction for me to change my academic path
and my way of knowing. Learning design with the academic
knowledge and way of thinking cultivated in economics is a
conflicting feeling of drifting between the sky and the ground.

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↑ Figure 3:Tiananmen square in Beijing and
Parliament Building in Ottawa

It is like I was trying to see the world beyond reality through
a pair of realistic glasses. I learned to take off my glasses and
also to deconstruct my glasses. From reality to explore beyond
reality, from beyond reality to imagine a better reality.
It is my rebellious mind and the reflection of differences in
my personal experience that determines the research focus
and direction of this thesis. Meanwhile, the experience of
differences in culture, cognition, and ideology plays a big role
in my design practice as the creative material and exploratory
inspiration.

I feel like I almost started this
APORIA magazine when I was five.

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THE DISEQUILIBRIUM
OF THE REALITY
https://images.app.goo.gl/72KeAco6FH3xjMrRA

There are two movies that have great influences on me during
my teenage time, one is The Truman Show, the other is the
Fight Club. Even though The Truman Show and Fight Club
presented different stories, but both of these two films are using
protagonist’s resistance to their reality as a means to trigger the
audience’s imagination. For me as a teenager, these two movies
opened a Pandora’s box for me. I began to pay attention to
the rules and principles in the real world. At the same time, I
was always questioning about the authenticity in the reality.
Through a fictional world which different from the real world,
the audience gets an opportunity to think and imagine beyond
the real.
According to Darko Suvin who is the author of Positions and
Presuppositions in Science Fiction, he claimed that science
fiction narratives are generated by a novum, a totalizing
phenomenon or relationship deviating from the author’s and
addressee’s norm of reality (1988). In dystopian films, this
novum is usually a brutal form of socio-political domination
that the protagonist attempts to escape or defeat. Therefore,
the novum presents the future by estranging the reader from
the present. This process of critical reflection is the cognitive
estrangement achieved by science fiction (Suvin, 1988). If
utopia promotes imagination through hope, then dystopia uses
this novum to arouse the interest of audiences and readers and
promote imagination, helping the audience to reflect on the real
world.
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↑ Figure 4: Film Still from The Truman Show,
1998

This is the scene in the movie when Truman decided to
go out of his world after he knew his reality is not real.

https://images.app.goo.gl/xt6z7xbdZvoPoXHV8

↑ Figure 5: Film Still from Fight Club,
1998

Taylor in the movie is the personality imagined by Jack,
it’s also a way for him to escape from the reality that
disappoints him.

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narrative technique novum. They all tried to use a kind of
difference and abnormality from reality as a way to attract
the attention from the audience, and then to triggering their
imagination. However, the reason this method can effectively
attract attention and provide space for active thinking is not only
because of the design method but also because of the effect in
cognitive psychology.
https://images.app.goo.gl/LJwT5dwmFwHxapGL7

6: Dunne & Raby, Needy Robot, 2007
↑ Figure
However, the limitations of the film and the inherent
from Technological Dreams No. 1: Robots, 2007.
Robot 3: Sentinel.Photograph by Per Tingleff.
characteristics of this media make the audience passively
This project is mentioned in the chapter of
accept the concepts and information in the film narratives
unrealistic aesthetics in the book.
(Dunne & Raby, 2013). According to McLuhan’s cool and hot
media theory (1994), in hot media, there is no space for the
audience to fill in, but in comparison, cool media requires the
audience to fill in the gaps to form a fuller picture. Another
perspective to understand the differences between cool and hot
media is identifying their information resolutions (McLuhan,
1994). In hot media, the information resolution is high in return
for low audience involvement; but in cool media, information
resolution is low, providing a much higher audience
involvement. Therefore, the film as a hot media according
to McLuhan provides high resolution but low audience
involvement.

Piaget’s theory (1976) of cognitive development indicated
that when encountering information that requires new schema
or to modify an existing schema, people will encounter a
disequilibrium. This disequilibrium is an imbalance between
what is understood and what is encountered. During this state of
cognitive imbalance, people will try to reduce this imbalance by
developing a new schema or adapting old ones until the balance
is restored (Piaget, 1976). According to Piaget, learning depends
on this process of being in a disequilibrium state and becoming
balanced, from which people can have the opportunity to grow
and develop.
What speculative design has encouraged is for designers to use
design artifacts as a way to trigger imagination and provide an
active thinking opportunity in relation to social dreaming (Dunne
& Raby, 2013). These design artifacts use aesthetic differences
as a means to break the cognitive balance for the audience and
create a state of imbalance. It is in this unbalanced state which
provides the audience an opportunity to break through the
existing cognitive framework of themselves and to jump out of
the constraints of reality.

APORIA magazine is using aesthetic
differences as a means to presents
cognitive imbalance, and to trigger
imagination and reflection.

From the concepts and methods elaborated in the book
Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming
by Dunne & Raby, I noticed some similarities to dystopia’s
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REBELLIOUS SPIRIT
Figure 8: Illustration from Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics in
The Visual Arts by David Crow in 2003.

Today we live in a visual age. From a pop idol’s hairstyle
to a president’s hat, every visual artifact as a visual symbol
is not only a communicative tool about meaning but also an
event of culture and politics. Semiotics as the study of signs
and symbols, it explores how humans use and interpret signs
and symbols to communicate, learn, and develop knowledge
(Chandler, 1994).
The founders of modern semiotics are Ferdinand de Saussure
and Charles Sanders Peirce, who respectively proposed
their own semiotic basic systems in the early 20th century.
Saussure indicated that sign is the whole that results from the
association of the signifier with the signified, where a signifier
can be a word or symbol, a signified is an underlying meaning
associated with the signifier. Therefore a sign is a thing that
conveys meaning. Saussure saw the relation between signifier
and signified as being essentially arbitrary, and motivated
only by social convention. Pierce pays more attention to the
interpretation of the meaning of symbols and the important
role that readers play in the creativity of reading symbols.

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https://images.app.goo.gl/
mwhWauCc1MKSGBtQ9

8: Illustration from Visible Signs: An
↑ Figure
Introduction to Semiotics in The Visual Arts by
David Crow in 2003.

Peirce interprets symbol as a trinity of
representatemen (R), object (O) and
interpretant (I).

↑ Figure 7: The hat which carries Trump’s

campaign slogan “MAKE AMERICA GREAT
AGAIN”, has become a powerful symbol of
political propaganda

Pierce believes that any symbol is composed of three items: a
representamen, an object, and an interpretant (Chandler, 1994).
Among them, the representamen is the carrier of the symbol,
and the object is what the symbol represents. In this group of
ternary relations, the interpretant is the decisive factor. The
interpretant is the equivalent created by the symbol in the mind
of the interpreter and can be understood in a broad sense as
the meaning or thought produced by the symbol in the mind of
the interpreter (Hall, 2012). Pierce emphasized that the core of
the symbolic meaning is the interpreter’s own understanding
and interpretation of the symbolic meaning. If Saussure’s dual
semiotic theory is structuralist, then Pierce’s semiotics is poststructuralist.

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https://images.app.goo.gl/ncM3Bxo2SRr4xtzs5

Deconstructionism is an extremely important school of
postmodernism. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida,
as the leader of the deconstruction, was dissatisfied with the
philosophical thoughts that have been running through the
West for thousands of years. He challenged the traditional
philosophical beliefs and criticized the Western metaphysical
tradition since Plato. In order to oppose metaphysics, the logos
center, and all closed and rigid systems, the deconstruction
movement vigorously promotes the dissolution of the subject,
the diffidence of meaning, and the freedom of signifier
(Lupton, 1994).
Based on Derrida’s deconstructionism, designers in the postmodern period began to use deconstruction as a means of style
exploration and applied it to design, which emerged in the
architectural design world in the late 1980s. Deconstruction
logically denies the traditional basic design principles
(aesthetics, mechanics, function), which creates new meanings
(Lupton, 1994). The ultimate goal for the deconstruction is to
provide people with a means of thought activities.

↑ Figure 9: Frank Owen Gehry, Disney Concert Hall,
California, 2003

The architectural works of American Postmodernist and
deconstructive Architects

With the advent of postmodernism in the 1960s, there has
been more and more criticism of this dual relationship in
Saussure’s semiotic theory. Postmodernism originated from
modernism but rebelled against modernism. It is a critique
and deconstruction of essentialism, fundamentalism, and
metaphysics of presence in traditional Western philosophy.
Postmodernism believes that there are infinitely many
interpretation possibilities for a given text, representation,
and symbol (Butler, 2002). In this way, the literal meaning
and traditional interpretation must give way to the author’s
intention and readers to reflect. At the end of the 19th
century, Nietzsche declared that “God is dead” and demanded
revaluation of all values. Since then, his rebellious ideas have
had a profound impact on the West (Linker, 2002). As a trend
of thought that questioned rationality and subverted tradition,
Nietzsche’s philosophy became one of the ideological sources
of deconstructionism.
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“As designers, maybe we are somewhere
in between; we provide some visual clues
but the viewer still has to imagine the world
the designs belong to and its politics, social
relations, and ideology.” (Dunne & Raby,
2013, p. 75)

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The Truman Show
Fight Club
Dystopia

When I put these words together, it
should not be difficult to notice certain
common areas between them. To some
extent, they all have a destructive
rebellious spirit. The interdisciplinary
exploration and investigation of rebellion
is the core and focus of my thesis.
It was through the investigation of
rebellion that the architectural structure
of the APORIA magazine was born and
constructed.

Speculative Design
Cognitive Disequilibrium
Postmodernism
Deconstruction
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THE MAGAZINE
APORIA magazine is the rebellion of visual. The
word aporia originally comes from Greek. In
philosophy, it means a philosophical puzzle or a
state in a puzzlement, as well as a rhetorically useful
expression of doubt (Politis, 2006). I named this work
APORIA, which implies my design practice intention:
not to create clear or correct visual information, but to
create dreamlike visual content as a means for visual
exploration.
As an experimental and fictional visual magazine,
APORIA is a graphic-based publication that contains
no articles, and each issue revolves around some
ideological themes. This magazine is a performed
piece of visual communication in a surreal visual style.
APORIA magazine is a pure graphic performance
through the rebellious visual strategy by using
semiotics and visual strategies.

Figure 10: APORIA magazine
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BEYOND THE REAL
https://images.app.goo.gl/H4N3UrRqvR1VrJGu8

APORIA magazine is based on the concern for the real world,
but it tries to explore the possibility of beyond the real. When
reading APORIA magazine, readers are likely to be in a state of
confusion. What is this page about? What are these images trying
to express? What’s the meaning of this? As an experimental
graphic design magazine, the content of every page of APORIA
is not easy to understand. These confusions and uncertainties
are part of the reading experience that this magazine hopes to
provide. At the same time, it is also a way for the magazine to
explore beyond reality.
↑ Figure 11: The Treachery of Images by Rene

“Semiotics involves studying
representations and the processes involved
in representational practices, and to
semioticians, reality always involves
representation. A defining feature of signs
is that they are treated by their users as
standing for or representing other things.”
(Chandler, 1994, p.15)
If “reality” always involves representation, then APORIA
magazine explores the rebellion against reality by breaking
the traditional representation of symbols as a symbolic
strategy. In different cultures, different countries and different
ideologies, the representation of symbols can help people as
a means for communication, also can be the interpretation of
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Magritte, 1929

meaning. However, the symbols shared by specific groups of
people also limit their ability to think and to imagine out of
their own ideological and cognitive constraints. APORIA tries
to create a visual exploration beyond reality by disrupting
the conventional representation and reorganizing symbols,
and provides a pause for thought. This pause of thought can
also be seen in Rene Magri’s The Treachery of Images. In
The Treachery of Images in 1929, through the contradiction
between the image and the text, Rene Magri creates a kind
of struggle which provides a pause of thought in the process
of the audience trying to find a stable and meaningful
interpretation. In my early experimental project, there was a
poster design with emotion as the theme. In this poster design,
the contradiction between text and image is also used as a
visual strategy. This contradictory symbolic strategy has been
developed, and eventually became the symbolic and visual
strategy in APORIA magazine.
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Figure 12: experimental poster project, 2020

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APORIA magazine uses the surreal visual style to create visual
works, and uses this destructive and chaotic visual aesthetic
style as a means to explore imagination. At the same time,
APORIA magazine applies the Surrealist world view which
breaks through the logic and reality to try to develop a visual
and aesthetics strategy. In Metahaven’s various design projects,
a unique nonrealistic visual aesthetics can also been seen. As a
pioneer graphic design studio in Europe, Metahaven redefined
political aesthetics and used their unique visual aesthetics as
a design means to research. As an experimental magazine,
APORIA tries to use its unique visual aesthetics as a means
of expression to carry out visual exploration on social and
political issues, so as to triggering thought and imagination
beyond the real.

↑ Figure 13: Images in APORIA magazine

https://images.app.goo.gl/S7o6PrDof99jFfmDA

In APORIA magazine, this pause of thought serves as the key
to enter the unreal and beyond the real through the inconsistent
relationship between the text and the image. For example, in
one of the pages, the original design intention is to express the
materialization and distortion of time caused by consumerism
in our daily life. However, it is not easy for readers to
understand it just by seeing the image. There is no direct and
clear relationship between the image (high-heeled shoes) and
the text (yesterday). When reading this page, readers need
to try to establish the relationship between the image and
the text through their own efforts, and they also need to try
to understand the meaning and intention of the visual image
by their own interpretation. APORIA magazine takes the
inconsistent relationship between text and image as a part of its
symbolic strategy to create a feast of visual imagination.

↑ Figure 14: Metahaven: The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda), HD video still 2015

https://images.app.goo.gl/tox1neJaPTm7uTH59

↑ Figure 15: Metahaven: The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda), HD video still 2015
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in visual performance: using visual as a pure expression and
exploration, rather than focusing on the visual meaning and
message ultimately conveyed. It is the rebellion against reality
and meaning.

https://images.app.goo.gl/4tDseFJhBMc5rtGLA

In the first Surrealist Manifestos published in Paris in 1924,
André Breton pointed out that surrealism is to resolve the
conflict that has always existed between dreams and reality and
to achieve an absolute reality, beyond reality. Salvador Dalí
said, “Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it
considers to be the shackles limiting our vision.”

In APORIA magazine, destruction is not
only to destroy, it has become a way to
explore possibilities, a thought tool to break
through and beyond the real.

↑ Figure 16: Jean Baudrillard, Luxembourg, 2003

So why does APORIA trying to explore beyond the real?
APORIA does not blindly criticize reality, but it hoping to
break through the rules and constraints of reality and try to
explore the possibility beyond reality. From the perspective of
design, it takes the unique aesthetics as the visual exploration
of the topic; from the perspective of readers, it tries to create a
more open and uncertain reading experience. Therefore, it can
be said that APORIA magazine is a resistance to the reality.
Jean Baudrillard believes that photography cannot convey
meaning. He believes that photography can resist violence
from the aspects of information, communication and aesthetics.
Baudrillard rediscovers the pure events in the images, and
used photography as a means of resistance. I used the word
performance to explain the expression form of APORIA.
The reason why I used performance is that compared with
visual communication, APORIA magazine is more interested
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GOOD UGLY DESIGN

https://images.app.goo.gl/s2Cxr53xG1bidUrF8

↑ Figure 17: Darius Ou, Autotypography project,
2012

APORIA magazine is an “ugly design”. Design elements: a
graphic style manual puts forward 20 golden rules for good
design in the book. If you read through APORIA magazine,
you will find that it not only does not abide by these 20 rules
but also breaks many so-called golden rules of graphic design.
Nowadays, many conventional rules of graphic design have
been broken, and there are more and more “ugly graphic
designs” that have been created. In August 2007, Patrick
Burgoyne who is the chief editor of Creative Review, wrote
an article on the Internet called The New Ugly, in which the
concept of the new ugly was proposed. In such an era of great
emphasis on aesthetics, designers who do not want to stick
to conventions begin to try to break through the barriers of
aesthetics and the original aesthetic order. In the first two
decades of the 21st century, the new ugly as a rule-breaking,
radical, and ugly design style was gradually formed (Burgoyne,
2007).

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APORIA magazine as the new ugly design, not only ignores
the general design rules deliberately but also intends to break
some common sense of graphic design. First of all, APORIA
does not follow the regular magazine design rules. It has no
articles, no page numbers, no text description for readers to
refer to. Secondly, APORIA magazine does not have a layout
standard. Each page is designed as an independent image, and
there is no standard editorial layout from page to page. Finally,
APORIA magazine tries to develop a rebellious ugly style and
tries to break the stereotype principle of good design. Darius
ou, a designer from Singapore, is also the challenger of graphic
design rules. Within a year, Darius Ou created 365 posters
trying to break the stereotype of “good design”, and he is one
of the important advocates of Singapore’s new ugly design.

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Steven Heller, director of the design department at the New
York Academy of visual arts, published an article entitled Cult
of the Ugly in the magazine EYE. In the article, he points out
that in the past, design often represented beauty and order.
But now, the existing systems in the design world need to
be reevaluated. The orders have been greatly impacted, and
different forms of conflicts have followed. So how to define
ugliness in the postmodern design environment is critical
(Heller, 1993). With the proposal of this question, more and
more graphic designers began to rethink the standard and
purpose of visual aesthetics. Meanwhile, with the tide of
postmodernism, a strong storm of judging ugliness appeared
in a provocative manner, and the rational aesthetics was
challenged by the perceptual ugliness. After that, various
works of ugly style began to enter the public view. APORIA
was born out of such a design intention: rebellion. APORIA
magazine uses exaggerated and complex graphic design
techniques to arranges images and challenges the principle of
good design. Through surrealist graphics, dazzling colors, and
chaotic layout, APORIA has passed a rebellious attitude to the
conventional design rules with the provocative design language
and developed its own visual aesthetics.
APORIA magazine tries to use a rebellious design style as
a means to resist the conventional aesthetic rules in graphic
design and to explore the potential of graphic design. This
spirit of exploration in graphic design can always be seen in
Quentin Fiore’s design work. In order to convey McLuhan’s
media theory visually, Fiore decided not to design the book
of The Medium is The Massage according to the conventional
method at that time. Through a large number of images and
scattered texts as a visual strategy to create a pioneering book
design. Although this is a design work more than 50 years ago,
Quentin Fiore’s breakthrough thinking and unconventional
design at that time are still very inspiring today.

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https://images.app.goo.gl/iftXTWmxr28z6QgP7

↑ Figure 18: Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore,
The Medium is The Massge, 1967

So what’s “good” about APORIA magazine? What does this
“good” mean? As mentioned above, APORIA is a rebellion
against good design, so it seems to be a paradox to say that
APORIA is a good design. In fact, this good does not mean that
it is good design, but that the provocative design language and
the breaking through thinking of design are good. As Steven
Heller said, “ugly design can be a coherent attempt to create
and define alternative standards (Heller, 1993).”

As an attempt to break the conventional
design, the ugliness of APORIA magazine is
to break through the conventional aesthetic
and some design standards, and also to try
to explore more possibilities and potential
of graphic design.
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SOCIAL-POLITICAL
COMMUNICATION TOOL

As a design practice to explore the potential and possibility
of graphic design on social and political issues, APORIA
magazine tries to explore and develop a visual communication
and design aesthetic strategy that can bring more open dialogue
and interpretation on social and political issues. Meanwhile,
APORIA wants to invite readers to read uncertain visual
content in a more open manner. This kind of uncertainty
can be seen clearly in the TOILETPAPER magazine. As an
art magazine, TOILETPAPER is very good at discussing
contemporary social and political topics with an open attitude.
This magazine is an art platform for self-experiment, but
anyone can buy and read it in the form of printed matter.
Although TOILETPAPER has a unique way of expression,
behind its grotesque appearance, there is no lack of serious
thinking and sharp views on such social-political issues as
consumerism, media, and even religious politics.
In fact, before the APORIA magazine was finalized, there
was a draft version in black and white. The design style and
visual aesthetics of this black and white version are completely
different from APORIA magazine. The visual information in
the black and white version is very specific and clear, and the
visual content of related social-political issues is relatively

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https://images.app.goo.gl/jSX8q86JoACukGRr8

↑ Figure 20: Adbusters magazine

https://images.app.goo.gl/
N4dRG5fc58VC16Ef6

↑ Figure 19: Toiletpaper magazine, 2017

radical and persuasive. Therefore, in this draft all the visions
are created in an attempt to persuade the readers. As a radical
and anti-capitalism magazine, Adbusters is excellent in visual
persuasion. Through its unique visual strategy, Adbusters is
very radical and powerful in the visual expression of social
and political perspectives. However, the information Adbusters
conveys through graphic design is relatively subjective and
manipulative. As designers, especially graphic designers,
we are very good at conveying specific information and
significance through visual communication. However, does this
manipulation limit the audience’s interpretation freedom? Does
this radical visual expression bring more integration or more
differences to society? Can visual aesthetics with reconciliation
ability become a kind of cultural and social adhesive? After
reflecting on the visual strategies and visual aesthetics of social
and political issues in the black and white version, APORIA
tries to explore the visual dialogue in relation to socialpolitical issues with a more incomprehensible visual expression
strategy.

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↑ Figure 21: Black and white version of magazine design

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This issue of APORIA magazine has launched a series of visual
explorations on capitalism, consumerism, political propaganda,
and other related topics. This incomprehensible visual
strategy refers to visions that cannot be easily understood.
This incomprehensible is also a kind of rebellion. APORIA
tries to weaken the certainty in visual communication and to
bring more open space for interpretation. For example, there is
one page about political differences. First, there is a gradient
Communist symbol in the middle of the image; second, there
is a blurred White House as the background; finally, there
are the words of HOME in the upper left corner and LAND
in the lower right corner. The design intention of this page is
to show the difference between the multi-party system in the
United States and the one-party system in China. Although
this difference is politically obvious, what APORIA hopes to
create is a more open interpretatant opportunity. Therefore,
it is difficult for readers to understand the creative intention.
Readers need to associate and reflect on the symbols in the
image to get their own interpretation. Metahaven is very
pioneering and excellent in this respect. When looking at
Metahaven’s movies and visual products, it is difficult for the
audience to understand its intention and the concept that the
designer wants to convey. However, there is always deep and
rigorous research and thinking behind its incomprehensible
visuals. In a book called Open Works, Umberto Eco points
out that open works provide readers with an open possibility.
Readers can choose their own perspective, decide which is the
prospect and which is the background, and freely associate
what they see (crow, 2010).

↑ Figure 22: Images in APORIA magazine

As a social-political practice and a tool
to trigger social and political dialogue,
APORIA magazine creates and explores
in relation to social-political issues
through an incomprehensible visual
communication strategy.
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VISUALIZING REBELLION

APORIA tries to think about the relationship and potential
between visual culture and visual communication in the era of
globalization. Visual culture refers to the way of life in which
an individual observes the world through a specific visual text.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of visual culture is
to visualize non-visual things. Because of the development of
the Internet and technology, we are living in an era of visual
wealth and vision domination (mirzoeff, 1999). At the same
time, because of the development of globalization, the division
and conflict between cultures are also increasing. The global
village is a concept proposed by Marshall McLuhan, which
is used to describe the phenomenon that the world culture is
shrinking and expanding at the same time of instant cultural
sharing realized by global technological progress (Dixon,
2009). On the one hand, people are more connected than
before the electronic age, and technology enables people to
obtain information from all over the world faster and more
conveniently. On the other hand, this kind of globalization may
also aggravate cultural conflicts, lead to cultural division, or
lead to cultural domination of more developed countries.
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But it is the existence of contradictions and divisions that
makes me even more convinced that designers play a
very important role in the process of globalization. Visual
communication has a very important influence on how people
think and interpret the meaning, but what if there are some
biases and assumptions in visual communication itself? In the
politics of Design, Ruben Pater questioned the universality
of visual communication. At the same time, Pater points
out that many designers, especially those from the western
world, are not aware of their cultural and political biases and
how these biases limit their design practice. In the process
of research, I acknowledged my cultural and political biases
that may exist. Therefore, the visual strategy and aesthetic
strategy developed and created through the APORIA magazine
is not only an exploration of the possibility between visual
communication and social-political issues but also a resistance
to social-political biases. When we use the rebellion as a
means of fighting these contradictions and differences, we
are not just designing for a single culture or a single country
anymore. We are for the reduction of contradictions and mutual
misunderstanding, we are for the diversity and compatibility of
globalization.

It’s the visualizing rebellion, and
also rebellious visual.

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Here, I would like to conclude my thesis
with a bold and unrealistic hypothesis:
When more graphic designers use rebellion
as a visual communication strategy of social
and political practice, can we move towards
a more open and inclusive future?

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FURTHER RESEARCH
I used APORIA magazine as a means to explore ways and
means that graphic design could interpret possible socialpolitical issues, and developed and created a rebellious visual
communication strategy. In the process of my research, I
realized that my own cross-cultural experience and personal
ideology have a great impact on the research itself, and also
may causes some cultural and political biases. It is based on
the reflection and acknowledgment of these biases that I began
to decide to carry out research and design in a way of selfreflection. It is because of this that I was able to find the feature
of rebellion from my personal experience and take it as the
direction and center to promote the progress of research. This
rebellion is a thought tool to break through and go beyond the
real, a style exploration to challenge the conventional design
and aesthetics, and a visual practice to trigger social-political
dialogue.
What I want to do through this work is to invite the audiences
to think, not to telling them something which is what we
traditionally do. We are in an information society where people
have all access to all the information they could possibly
ever want, but we are not in a thinking society. Therefore, I
am using APORIA magazine as a means to explore the ways
in which graphic design could interpret possible social and
political issues, and how can visual communication be used
as a social-political communication tool as a way to invite
audiences to think.

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I designed this magazine as a way to think through some of the
tools designers might use in order to create spaces for people
to think. The magazine is for me to explore what these tools
might be. It is a research mechanism for me to use design as a
way to better understand what I am proposing, which is a series
of actual things that designers should be considering in order
to create an incomprehensible visual communication that will
invite the audiences to think.
Therefore, it also can be said that what I designed is not the
magazine itself but the mechanism that I am proposing in
order to create this incomprehensible visual communication.
Therefore through this Aporia project, I am proposing this
mechanism in order to create incomprehensible visual
communication as my design outcomes.
I do not have the intention to develop this Aporia magazine
into the real world, but this incomprehensible visual
communication mechanism will always be involved in my
further research and professional practices, meanwhile, I
will take the same spirit of rebellion as a way of design
philosophy and reflection in my future professional practices.
As a professional designer and visual researcher, I will keep
investigating the rebellious attitude and the provocative design
language as a way to explore the potential and possibilities of
visual communication.
I believe that graphic design can make progress only when
designers constantly seek non-conventional ways to challenge
existing rules and principles.

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APPENDIX 1: Poster Design

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APPENDIX 2: Textual Animation
Through this animation project, I tried to investigating cognitive
disequilibrium from semiotics perspective.

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APPENDIX 3: Magazine Design

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Axelrod, R. (1973). Schema theory: An information processing model of perception and
cognition. American political science review, 67(4), 1248-1266.

Kress, G. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images : the grammar of visual design (2nd
ed.). Routledge.

Breton, A. (1924). First surrealist manifesto. Surrealism, edited by Patrick Waldberg, 6672.

Linker, D. (2002). Nietzsche’s truth. First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public
Life, 50-61.

Butler, C. (2002). Postmodernism: A very short introduction (Vol. 74). Oxford Paperbacks.
Chandler, D. (1994). Semiotics for beginners.

Lupton, E., & Miller, J. A. (1994). Deconstruction and graphic design: history meets
theory. Visible language, 28(4), 345-365.

Crow, D. (2010). Visual Sign: An Introduction to Semiotics in the Visual Arts.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1975). The holy family. Рипол Классик.

Dixon, V. K. (2009). Understanding the implications of a global village. Inquiries
Journal, 1(11).

Mirzoeff, N. (1999). An introduction to visual culture. Psychology Press.

Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT
press.
Goldman, R., & Papson, S. (1996). Sign wars: The cluttered landscape of advertising. New
York: Guilford Press.
Gozzi, R. (1992). “HOT” AND “COOL” MEDIA. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 49(2),
227-230.

Piaget, J. (1976). Piaget’s theory. In Piaget and his school (pp. 11-23). Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg.
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Essays, 88, 109.
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Hall, S. (2012). This means this, this means that : a user’s guide to semiotics (2nd ed.).
Laurence King Pub.
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Child Behavior and Development. Springer, Boston, MA

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Chinese elementary school’s class room. (2012)
Figure 2 : Film Still from Malèna. (2000)
Figure 3 : Picture of Tiananmen square and Parliament Building. (2020)
Figure 4: Film Still from The Truman Show. (1998)
Figure 5: Film Still from Fight Club. (1998)
Figure 6: Dunne & Raby, Needy Robot, 2007 from Technological Dreams No. 1: Robots. Robot
3: Sentinel.Photograph by Per Tingleff. (2007)
Figure 7: The MAGA hat. (2018)
Figure 8: Illustration from Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics in The Visual Arts by
David Crow. (2003)
Figure 9: Frank Owen Gehry, Disney Concert Hall, California. (2003)
Figure 10: cover page of APORIA magazine. (2020)
Figure 11: The Treachery of Images, Rene Magritte. (1929)
Figure 12: experimental poster project, 2020
Figure 13: Images in APORIA magazine. (2020)
Figure 14: Metahaven: The Sprawl: Propaganda About Propaganda, HD video still. (2015)
Figure 15: Metahaven: The Sprawl: Propaganda About Propaganda, HD video still. (2015)
Figure 16: Jean Baudrillard, Luxembourg. (2003)
Figure 17: Darius Ou, Autotypography project. (2012)
Figure 18: Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore, The Medium is The Massge. (1967)
Figure 19: Toiletpaper magazine. (2017)
Figure 20: Adbusters magazine. (2019)
Figure 21: Black and white version of magazine design. (2020)
Figure 21: Images in APORIA magazine. (2020)

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