Tweets from the DCrit Conference

On Friday I had the pleasure of attending the DCrit Conference at the School of Visual Arts, presented by the graduating class of the master’s program in design criticism in which I teach. Along with the student presentations, there is always a roster of invited guests, who this year included Nicholson Baker, Justin McGuirk, Emily Stokes-Rees, Aric Chen and Peter Lunenfeld. The highlight for me was Baker, an author whose writing has always seemed design-adjacent, and who revealed himself to be part of a multi-generational design family. (Which means he might one day write the architectural novel I once imagined for him.)

I live-tweeted during part of the conference. I’ve pasted a few moments below, along with links to video of the presentations to which they relate. It was a rich stew of fonts, futurisms, tiny houses and nation branding.

Nicholson Baker, Wrapping Sentences Around Things
Nicholson Baker: “Everyone here has been to Crate & Barrel, right? There’s a big, beautiful stack of paper at the checkout…”

“We’re just wrapper-uppers at Crate & Barrel… We are talking about an object that lives in the eye… We are cheerleaders.”

“We are the excelsior they come bundled in when we write about them.” Nicholson Baker on writing about objects.

In 1966 Baker’s father commissioned Wendell Castle to make the family a table without legs. It was in the NYT.

The table dried out. They eventually had to remove it because the wood couldn’t do what Castle wanted. It self-destructed.

Anne Quito, Designing A Nation from Scratch
“I had many critical questions, like … Is that Times New Roman? Does the nation-branding flock of eagles need another member?”

Anna Marie Smith, Materializing Miniature Living
“The most impt aspect of micro-living is not the architecture but the inhabitants.”

Lynda Decker, Sex Wax on the Subway
“Each cover shows a young man on a large wave.” Lynda Decker on Surf, Surfer, Surfing and their “dudes in the tube”

And final thought from Peter Lunenfeld:
“One button says Buy Now, the other button says Buy Later.” On the future of interaction design.

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