In its mechanism, designing images is projecting a picture that represents something; that is to say, which publicly substitutes it, occupying the role of narrator of this something, but also contributing to the transformations of the identity of the one who is dealing with this picture.
In this context, the image will always arouses in those who observe it a story that presents its cause and effect and which always raises a conclusion. Thus, this fact socially produces the questioning or reinforcement, by the image and its corresponding myth, of the way to see reality and as a consequence of that, the way the observers see their own identity.
But, what does this design intend to design? In fact, design is intended to design the person that is looking at it. That is to say, what the design is really trying to design is an ideal citizen. So ideal that he or she desires what someone wants him or her to desire, that he or she dreams with the things that someone projects and he or she thinks as the designers wants him or her to think. In that way, this good ideal person can turn into a predictable and instrumentally useful citizen for that one who, from clay, tries to create this person at the individual or group vision’s own image. At the political level, design creates forms both through democratic foundations and objectives as well as through the force in totalitarian governments, but always looking to construct a being; a being who develops an existence under certain ideas, values and beliefs; that is to say, someone who can be a pre-designed entity.
One way of understanding design and the designed subject is to see what design makes from its action. For example, we can discover how design involves in its activity the construction of totalities, dreams and beauty; the meeting of sense, differentiation and power.
© Sebastian Guerrini, 2009
