A couple of weeks ago I inter­viewed gra­phic and inter­ac­tion desi­gner Ste­wart Smith in Karls­ruhe (Ger­many) about his work, the ÉCAL where he held a work­shop and what he thinks about art schools and design edu­ca­tion in gene­ral. Hope you find it interesting.

TM: Let’s talk about your workshop…

SS: I was working with Media Inter­ac­tion Design stu­dents. It’s wit­hin the Gra­phic Design pro­gram but they do a little bit of com­pu­ter pro­gramming — like some Flash — in addi­tion to the tra­di­tio­nal design clas­ses. I did this one-week work­shop and it was loo­sely based on a work­shop I’d done with Jürg Lehni for the Royal Col­lege of Art. He and I were really inte­res­ted in pro­gramming lan­gua­ges or just the ideas that are in pro­gramming lan­gua­ges: That you have things like a sequence of instruc­tions and you can have loops of code and you can jump from one spot of code to ano­ther… and for the Royal Col­lege of Art we were thin­king we would like to get stu­dents crea­ting their own lan­gua­ges. Lan­gua­ges to do silly things you know, but it didn’t mat­ter. It was more about having to solve this pro­blem of what the lan­guage is about and how it works. So we did that work­shop toge­ther and based on the results we both wan­ted to rede­sign the work­shop a bit. We tried it out, we saw what the stu­dents did and they did some cool stuff but we wan­ted to change the brief and to start with a simi­lar idea and move it in a slightly dif­fe­rent direc­tion. So I got this oppor­tu­nity to do a work­shop on my own at the ÉCAL and I star­ted with this assi­gn­ment that Jürg and I had made toge­ther. I made some chan­ges to it and gave it to the students.

TM: So you actually took the things the stu­dents crea­ted and used it for…

SS: Oh, that would have been even bet­ter I guess, but we gave them one assi­gn­ment and, of course, when you give someone an assi­gn­ment ever­yone will approach it dif­fer­ently and we weren’t totally sure what to expect. And then the stu­dents made things and we thought: Okay, if we give them an assi­gn­ment like this, then they’ll pro­bably make some­thing like this again. So what if we change it a bit? Maybe we will get dif­fe­rent results. So I took that assi­gn­ment and chan­ged it — tried to tay­lor it more for the stu­dents at ÉCAL, that it wasn’t just reu­sing that thing.

TM: How did you direct the stu­dents? Did they have a lot of freedom?

SS: Well, they had a lot of free­dom and I gave them this assi­gn­ment where they could really approach it howe­ver they wan­ted to. But it had to meet cer­tain requi­re­ments and they would come back to me and show me what they were working on and some of it would be really cool but I would always be poin­ting back and say: Does it meet this requi­re­ment?

TM: Okay. And what kind of stu­dents did you teach at the ÉCAL?

SS: They were first and second years. The way they do it at the ÉCAL is, that it is a one-week work­shop, a work­shop week and all nor­mal clas­ses stop­ped. There were a lot of people that came in and did work­shops and I was just one of them. Which is not how it worked where I went to school: Someone would come in and give a work­shop but you still had nor­mal classes.

TM: What did you expect from the stu­dents and did they meet your requi­re­ments?

SS: They didn’t exactly meet my requi­re­ments but – well, some did – but the other pos­si­bi­lity is, that they don’t meet your requi­re­ments but they do some­thing that’s really nice any­way and you are a bit sur­pri­sed. In a good way. And that hap­pened with a few stu­dents.

TM: So at the end you were satis­fied with the result of what the stu­dents did?

SS: Yes, I would say that I was kind of disap­poin­ted in me though. In a way how I phra­sed stuff because I am nor­mally working with people who do a lot of pro­gramming and I end up speaking in that lan­guage and expect ever­yone to under­stand what I’m asking for.

TM: How did the work­shop take place, which tech­ni­ques or lan­gua­ges were allo­wed… etc?

SS: Oh, I didn’t even want them to use com­pu­ters but a lot of them did. The assi­gn­ment was to create a lan­guage for doing some­thing and you could use pro­gramming if you wan­ted to, but I think it’s bet­ter when they choose not to…

TM: …so some­thing like an off­line algo­rithm for some­thing?

SS: Yeah, the trick is, that I didn’t really want them to make algo­rithms so much as a lan­guage that they could create algo­rithms in — but I don’t think I explai­ned it well enough. And if I alre­ady tried to give that assi­gn­ment again, that would be some­thing that I would really focus on. They had to create a lan­guage and had to find some­thing that alre­ady exis­ted that they would use as a pro­gram in that lan­guage. So there were three parts in the assi­gn­ment: Create a lan­guage, use some­thing that alre­ady exists as a pro­gram for the lan­guage and then to write your own pro­gram for your own lan­guage that forces your lan­guage to do some­thing new.

TM: Okay cool, so it was really inte­res­ting to see what comes out when stu­dents aren’t so fami­liar with pro­gramming and pro­gramming lan­gua­ges. – Around the work­shop: Did you have an exhi­bi­tion or some­thing of that kind?

SS: Not really, but at the end of the work­shop we had a final cri­ti­que and each of the groups pre­sen­ted their work. So there wasn’t a real exhi­bi­tion.

TM: Did you get a fee­ling of how the ÉCAL works as an insti­tu­tion and how it is struc­tu­red?

SS: Only slightly since it was only there for a week and was pretty focu­sed on the work­shop, but I was kind of ama­zed of their faci­li­ties and the things they had to work with.

TM: In which way?

SS: They had a lot of space and a lot of equip­ment which is a huge con­trast to where I went to school.

TM: Where did you go to school by the way?

SS: I went to school twice, but I guess it applies to both of them: I stu­died gra­phic design at the Uni­ver­sity of Con­nec­ti­cut for under­grad and then for gra­duate school I went to Yale Uni­ver­sity.

TM: So you are from Con­nec­ti­cut then?

SS: I lived there for a long time but I moved around quite a bit. Usually the easy ans­wer is, that I am from New York and now live in Lon­don. So it’s even more com­pli­ca­ted.

TM: The other teachers and staff mem­bers… Did you meet them? How are they? What was your expe­ri­ence there?

SS: Good, good. Alain Bel­let – he is the head off the media and inter­ac­tion design depart­ment – we had some really inte­res­ting con­ver­sa­ti­ons about strugg­ling to figure out what to teach stu­dents as a pro­gramming lan­guage or some­thing because what really mat­ters is just that you under­stand the con­cepts and not neces­sa­rily the one lan­guage, because these are always chan­ging. And for now he has been going mostly with Flash but also I think he is star­ting to teach Pro­ces­sing or he has been teaching Pro­ces­sing. Just that struggle of what do you teach stu­dents who are not com­pu­ter sci­ence stu­dents… Because they can’t spend all of their time try­ing to teach them some com­pli­ca­ted pro­gramming lan­guage because I also have to focus on their design, strictly visual work and that’s an inte­res­ting pro­blem.

TM: It’s an inte­res­ting con­nec­tion where we can go fur­ther, because art schools are always about using tra­di­tio­nal tech­ni­ques to design edi­to­ri­als, books, pos­ters and stuff like this and that doesn’t need a huge know­ledge about dif­fi­cult and com­plex struc­tures such as pro­gramming lan­gua­ges. Do you think that tra­di­tio­nal art schools on the one hand and pro­gramming and com­pu­ter sci­ence on the other hand should merge or move clo­ser toge­ther somehow?

SS: Well I guess the way that I think about it and I know I am not in the majo­rity, but I just feel like the com­pu­ter is actually not even that inte­res­ting and just a tool in the same way that… If your are really doing type set­ting years and years ago you would really have to know ever­y­thing about an off­set press and how you arrange it at the actual led type and so you were still inves­ting a lot of time in learning how the tech­no­logy worked. It’s just a dif­fe­rent tech­no­logy. Or like pho­to­gra­phy… Now ever­yone is doing digi­tal — even in school, which is strange to me. And the point is that before it was digi­tal you would usually buy che­mi­cals and use them in the dar­kroom and even ear­lier than that you were mixing your own che­mi­cals. So pho­to­graph­ers in a way were ama­teur che­mists that really knew a lot about how these things inter­act, how that chan­ges with dif­fe­rent mix­tures, dif­fe­rent tem­pe­ra­tures, all sorts of things that you would think only a phy­si­cist or che­mist would know and I bet they were often accu­sed of being like sci­en­tists as if that’s a bad thing. And it’s not a bad thing. And I see a simi­lar thing with com­pu­ters where people who don’t use them to create their work think that sud­denly it’s more of an engi­nee­ring task.

TM: Inte­res­ting… Do you think that the know­ledge about all of these newer or modern tech­no­lo­gies grows quietly into all of these stu­dies or should it grow into them?

SS: Yeah, I just think it’s about under­stan­ding your tools whe­ther that’s like you know dif­fe­rent paints… I mean it used to be that you mix your own paints as well and say — again — you will have to have all of this che­mi­cal know­ledge. And I just think that’s where com­pu­ters are. Instead of kno­wing how to mix che­mi­cals you know how to mix algo­rithms.

TM: I think ano­ther example pro­bably is web design, which is obviously gro­wing more import­ant. How do you think should we teach and learn to use these new „che­mi­cals“?

SS: That’s a really tough ques­tion, because I think that the tools are really bad. Like HTML is hor­ri­ble, CSS is really bad… and I’d love to replace these things with bet­ter lan­gua­ges. And it just always feels bad when you are try­ing to teach some­thing to someone and you know that the tools are really bad and then they are sup­po­sed to make some­thing nice with it.

TM: Okay, then do you think that there should be more… lay­ers? More lay­ers above CSS and HTML and these things so they become more easy?

SS: I don’t think it’s a ques­tion of being com­pli­ca­ted because usually good tools end up having some level of sophisti­ca­tion. You have to learn them. So I don’t think they are too com­pli­ca­ted but more the fact that they are really badly made. Like Java… I had to use Java in pro­jects and I think it’s just a bad lan­guage. You can do a lot with it but it’s not inter­nally con­sis­tent, it’s not beau­ti­ful, etc…

TM: I always had pro­blems with learning pro­gramming lan­gua­ges hig­her than HTML and CSS such as Java­Script because of the level of dif­fi­culty…

SS: I really like Java­Script. I think that it had a lot of the right inten­ti­ons. You can do a lot of really inte­res­ting stuff with it. It was made to look like Java in C++ which I don’t like so much… but it’s a power­ful lan­guage.

TM: Yeah defi­ni­tely… So let’s talk a little more about the ÉCAL again. I heard that it’s really struc­tu­red and somehow really hier­ar­chi­cal…

SS: I didn’t really under­stand the hier­ar­chy, because I have been there so briefly so I mostly wasn’t sure if they were work­shop staff or other guests or maybe the assis­tant direc­tor. So I made some social mis­ta­kes… You know shaking someone’s hands and say­ing „Oh, are you here for a work­shop, too?“ and it’s like „No, I am in charge of the Pho­to­gra­phy pro­gram“… (laughs)

TM: Which age were the stu­dents?

SS: They see­med pretty young but I was dea­ling with the under­gra­duate students.

TM: Did you do a work­shop at the HfG once, too?

SS: I just came in for Urs’s class just to talk about my work and unfor­t­u­na­tely it was in the morning and I worry that we all had not quite enough cof­fee yet… (laughs)

TM: It was a good talk though. I was there and for that time of the day it was pretty crow­ded there. (laughs)

SS: Oh, really? I was worried that I don’t speak Ger­man and I am just ram­bling in English and not say­ing some­thing inte­res­ting…

TM: No, no and I think people like you are very import­ant for the HfG because you show that you can actually use new tech­no­lo­gies in your crea­tive work and not to get stuck in the tra­di­ti­ons of gra­phic design.

SS: Yeah there is this false sepa­ra­tion that’s crea­ted bet­ween artists and engi­neers when really the best engi­neers are artists and the best artists are engi­neers.

TM: If you look at art schools in gene­ral: You pro­bably saw quite some art and design uni­ver­si­ties and schools during your work… What were your expe­ri­en­ces and where do you think are they hea­ding or should be hea­ding?

SS: I taught for a semes­ter at the Inter­ac­tive Telecom­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons Pro­gram at New York Uni­ver­sity. I was teaching a class on data visua­liza­tion using Pro­ces­sing. And those stu­dents came from a much more computer-based back­ground instead of an art back­ground. Some of them had a little bit of both. And then on the other side I went to Yale and stu­died in a pretty tra­di­tio­nal gra­phic design pro­gram – very print based. And I guess you’re asking where I see the future as… I had two fri­ends who went to a pro­gram at Car­ne­gie Mel­lon in the US and it was cal­led Enter­tain­ment Tech­no­logy: And what they were try­ing to do was to bring in stu­dents who had com­pu­ter pro­gramming back­grounds, engi­nee­ring robo­tics back­grounds and gra­phic design and art and story wri­t­ing and bring all these people toge­ther and force them to work toge­ther and figure out how to talk to each other. You know, ever­yone ends up having their own lan­guage right? When you are stu­dy­ing gra­phic design the way you talk about your work ends up being really hard to under­stand for outs­iders some­ti­mes. And the same thing applies for com­pu­ter sci­en­tists. Once you begin to break down that bar­rier a little and you are working on a pro­ject toge­ther you can use each others strength to make some­thing that none of you could have ima­gi­ned making on your own. Which is really cool, so I think a pro­gram like that is a really nice way to go.

TM: So do you think that – like the HfG has the ZKM over here – schools with such a con­cept or a simi­lar con­cept, are a good way to go?

SS: Yeah, I remem­ber when I was an under­grad I just hap­pened to be in the Dean’s office, wait­ing to talk to someone. You know when you just wait fore­ver… and this other stu­dent came in and was tal­king to the Dean at the time and he asked her if she would sign this docu­ment say­ing that he could con­ti­nue to be an art stu­dent but he is also going to be taking some com­pu­ter sci­ence cour­ses and for some rea­son she had to sign these docu­ments so it’s okay. And she kind of laug­hed at him and she’s like: Why would anyone want to do this? And signed the docu­ments and after he left she con­ti­nued to talk to her col­lea­gues and said some­thing like: How silly is that. It’s so ridi­cu­lous. He must not be much of an art stu­dent. And I remem­ber thin­king: You idiot! If you say Yes and then really paid atten­tion to his art clas­ses and made sure he was doing really well on the art side then you would have someone who had a foot in both worlds. I mean, a lot of the time you end up fal­ling in one or the other direc­tions… But the idea that they can’t exist toge­ther is just silly I think. Silly.

TM: So do you think having a foot in both worlds like you is import­ant? Or even if these worlds should merge toge­ther at some point?

SS: I would hope they merge toge­ther at some point. Well, if you look at com­pa­nies like Apple obviously they do a ton of engi­nee­ring but then it has to not only look good but it has to make sense. Like the amount of time they had to spend deci­ding whe­ther the little Apple menu goes up to the top or the bot­tom back in the early 80s when they where desi­gning their Lisa. I mean that was really a gra­phic design inter­face pro­blem hap­pe­ning at an engi­nee­ring com­pany and they still have to solve pro­blems like that. So if you look at com­pa­nies as an example, the big ones are having this pro­blem: They have the engi­neers and the artists in the same room dis­cus­sing the pro­blem toge­ther so maybe that’s one answer.

TM: Your com­pany is just a one man thing right? You are always working with other people toge­ther with your com­pany but it’s just you in general?

SS: Yes and I do have a foot in both worlds but I’m obviously just one per­son who can’t do ever­y­thing. It’s tempt­ing but I wouldn’t really want to, because I have my strengths and weak­nes­ses. So I have my fri­ends to work with.

TM: Are you working with other people who are also having a foot in both worlds or…

SS: Usually yes but I mean a lot of the time someone would be stron­ger in one area then ano­ther and I wouldn’t always say that it comes down to whe­ther you’re like an art per­son or a math per­son or some­thing. It’s more like… for example I am more like a Java­Script per­son then a Java per­son.

TM: So it’s always also kind of an out­sour­cing thing, like I don’t know anything about PHP so I take this deve­l­oper who is really good a PHP as my part-time cowor­ker?

SS: Some­ti­mes but I always want to under­stand what my col­la­bo­ra­tors are doing. Even if I only under­stand the sur­face of it. So I could never just hire someone wit­hout kno­wing what kind of work they do. Usually the people that I work well with are usually the guys or girls who are also doing pro­jects for fun on the side because it shows they get exci­ted about things and they like to expe­ri­ment. So even if we don’t agree on some­thing we can say: Oh, we tried this way and that way, too. And you go with wha­te­ver feels right and we don’t have to argue so much.

TM: When is your exhi­bi­tion?

SS: it opens Sep­tem­ber 16^th at the ZKM.

TM: Thank you so much for this interview.