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Paging Brian Eno
By Megan Driscoll
The study and discourse surrounding the arts has long been dominated by the attempt to define the concept of "art." In the nineteenth century, Théophile Gautier popularized the slogan "l'art pour l'art," which translates to "art for art's sake." This introduced into popular opinion the idea that art should be something autonomous from the rest of visual culture. Enlightenment principles and the cultural effects of industrialization led to a push in European thought to separate the arts from their role in religion, ritual, and everyday life, and to establish a distinction between fine art and mere "decoration."
Fast forward 100 years, and we find ourselves in the midst of a movement to reverse that process. In the mid- to late twentieth century, many postmodernists were concerned with expanding the realm of artistic practice to include pop culture, commercialism, and the decorative. Works like Andy Warhol's legendary Campbell's Soup function as a rebellion against the notion that it is valuable, or even possible, to truly separate the arts from the rest of our visual world. This meant not only integrating myriad aspects of visual culture into making art, but also bringing an artistic sensibility into making objects. And thus the notion of design as a pursuit of the fine arts was born.
There are an almost infinite number of realms of daily life that have been affected by this movement. From appliances to advertisement, the idea that not only could visual creativity be brought to commercial and functional objects, but that the design of such objects could be considered an art form, has influenced our environment. As I have been traveling for the last several weeks, I was delighted to walk into the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and discover Airworld, an exhibition on the visual world of commercial flight. Airworld explores the history and design of many different aspects of air travel: airports, cabins, chairs, table (or tray) ware, uniforms, and of course, the airplanes themselves. The show develops a narrative of the dual development of function and aesthetics in the "air world," exploring the evolution of the design of each element in response to the role of air travel. Made up of a combination of photographs, videos, models, documents, and educational commentary, the installations demonstrate the shift from the highly technical emphasis of the early years, through the era of luxury travel, to the current status of air travel, when the accessibility of flight and rising cost of fuel has created a drive toward sleeker and more economic design.
One of the most dramatic aspects of air travel design is the architecture of the airports themselves. The show describes the process of designing an airport as one geared towards developing an environment that must not only be a visually pleasing and effective use of a large space, but must also convey an atmosphere of comfort and security to the passengers, both within the airport and in its overall shape, such as the appearance of "open arms" that the popular curved style of mid-twentieth century airports was meant to convey. As the demand for air travel has gone up, airports have shifted to a more modular design that allows for much greater expansion and lends itself to an elegant, futuristic style.
The uniforms of flight attendants also make up a major section of the exhibit. A competition was held at the Fashion department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie to design clothing inspired by air travel, and the winners' designs were exhibited, in conjunction with an installation of several historical uniforms. The development of the uniforms highlights the effect that social pressure has had on the aesthetics of air travel. While popular fashion—and even haute couture—have certainly influenced the changing uniforms, one of the most significant factors in their basic design has been sexual politics. In the early days of flight travel, relatively conservative sexual mores dictated longer skirts and straight cuts. As the 1960s and 70s brought on the so-called sexual revolution, skirts became shorter, and uniforms began to conform more toward contemporary fashions. Subsequent efforts of the Women's Rights movement to de-sexualize flight attendants and remove the gender bias from the position have led once again to more conservative and businesslike attire.
What the exhibit expresses best is the strangely transformative effect of air travel. Walking into an airport becomes like walking into a new world, which not only contains a different set of social expectations, but its own visual codes. Even the smallest detail, such as attractive yet light and stackable dishes, has been carefully designed to construct a precise environment. While this experience can combine with the fatigue of travel to become overwhelming, it also creates a unique beauty. There are few things with the same surreal and pleasurable effect as watching the lights of an airport disappear beneath you, or descending into its alien, yet welcoming, shape.
