CATALOGUE ESSAYS

Foreword
Curator’s Introduction

Foreword

Designers have always wanted to believe that design matters, but rarely has the case been made as convincingly as it was in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. The protagonist was not a candidate but a piece of voting equipment: the quirky, difficult-to-use Votomatic, a machine that confused numerous voters, led to large numbers of votes not being counted, and set in motion a series of events that led to electoral votes being awarded to George W. Bush, winning him the presidency. With its awkward, perplexing design, the Votomatic changed the course of history. If it is not the exactly a testament to the ability of good design to solve problems, it certainly underscores the extent to which fl awed design can create them.

At Parsons School of Design, we are committed to looking at design not only as a theoretical exercise and not only as an aesthetic pursuit — vital though both of these ways of seeing design are — but also as a presence in the world of public affairs and culture. Exploring the connections between design and politics, economics, social science, media, entertainment, health care, technology, and education — in short, between design and society — is an essential part of our mission. We believe that design exists in the real world and that great design improves the world. It is never enough on its own, but as the events in Florida prove, we ignore good design at our peril. When the hotelier and developer André Balazs acquired several dozen Votomatics from a flea market in Florida, he shared one of them with his good friend Ken Lerer, an ardent proponent of social causes. It was through Ken Lerer that the booths were fi rst made available to Parsons, and with his help and that of Rick Finkelstein, we devised the notion of asking a group of artists, architects, and designers to take a Votomatic and use it as the basis for some kind of creative work. Participants in the project, which became known as THE VOTING BOOTH PROJECT, were invited to respond to the booth in any way they chose — by turning it into a new work of art, by embellishing it, or even by using it as the inspiration to design an alternative version of a voting machine.

The Florida Votomatic booths — and booths is something of a misnomer, since they are actually more in the line of lightweight tables on spindly legs, no more like true booths than today´s small phone kiosks are true telephone booths —have a casual, almost amiable look to them at first glance. They are altogether different from the heavy, curtained voting machines that are still used in New York, relics of another age, and they are equally different from the newer electronic voting machines that are gradually coming into use in many states and which present an altogether different set of problems of their own. The Votomatics are essentially portable desks on which voters punch out their choices on paper ballots that are set into a patterned clear plastic holder. It is not hard to see how easy it is for voters to be confused by the way in which the ballot needs to be positioned within the holder to make a vote effective. The booths are made to be folded up like metal valises, almost like large artists’ portfolios, and their very lightness suggests a kind of transient quality, as if the votes they were made to record could fl y away like the infamous chads that come out of their punched-out paper ballots.

We are honored to be able to put the results of THE VOTING BOOTH PROJECT on display at Parsons. It is a way of celebrating the work of these artists, architects, and designers and the comments they make on the democratic process, and it is also a way of revealing the intimate connection between design and public life — indeed, between design and democracy. Design matters to our public life, not only in Florida but everywhere.

I have already mentioned both André Balazs, whose generosity made this exhibition possible, and Ken Lerer, whose enthusiasm and commitment to Parsons made it possible for it to happen here. Norman Lear’s enthusiastic endorsement of the project were both welcome and appreciated. I also thank David Rockwell, Ronald Feldman, and Nick Dawes for their invaluable counsel.

But no one has played a larger role in the creation of this exhibition than Chee Pearlman, the gifted design consultant, writer, and editor who has acted as our guest curator. It has been a pleasure to work with her on this project and to say that this exhibition refl ects Chee´s vision as much as my own. Many thanks are also extended to Chee’s capable assistant, Emily Main. The eminent design fi rm Pentagram played a critical role in the design of both the exhibition and its accompanying materials, and we are deeply grateful to Michael Bierut and his colleague Jena Sher for their extraordinary work. Michael Moran’s wonderful photographs and tireless effort are similarly appreciated. This very catalog was made possible by the enthusiastic and generous support of the Julien J. Studley Foundation.

Several members of the Parsons staff have also played critical roles in the creation of this exhibition, including Susan Ebersole, Director of Development, and Deborah Bogosian, Director of External Affairs. Christopher Mount, the new Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, quickly became an essential part of the project team. Mira Jacob, editor of RE:D, our alumni magazine, and Meg Callery and the Promotion Design team were a tremendous support for the catalogue and printed materials. P.R. consultant Cecilia Bonn was tireless in her effort to get word about the project out. As always, Assistant Director of Exhibitions Daisy Wong installed the show beautifully, while Chair of Design and Technology Colleen Macklin and her students gave us technical wherewithal for the online gallery. I am also indebted to my wonderful assistant Erin Kane, for helping me to keep this and so many other projects moving forward.

Finally, I am delighted to acknowledge those at New School University whose support for innovative programming at Parsons has been unfl agging: President Bob Kerrey, Provost Arjun Appadurai, and Executive Vice President Jim Murtha.

Paul Goldberger
Dean

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Curator’s Introduction

The idea that designers can be outspoken about social issues might come as a surprise to some. While designers are often seen as fixers and problem solvers, they are rarely regarded as political critics or activists. It is that misperception, in fact, that makes the opening of THE VOTING BOOTH PROJECT all the more compelling. Forty-seven designers, architects, and artists have contributed to this exhibition, showcasing their response to the Votomatic punch-card voting machine — the very object that sent the 2000 presidential election in Florida into a tailspin. Each participant was sent a metal valise containing the collapsible booth, a design that has changed little since it was introduced by Votomatic in the early 1960s and that for a time was the most widely used voting machine in America. Entirely self-contained, its case opens to form a small table with side wall flaps, screw-on legs, a florescent light, and a tiny stylus for punching chads out of perforated voting cards. (Many of the booths participants received had chads still in them.)

None of the participants addressed the assignment as they would a typical design breif — to try to fix a machine that has clearly been declared broken. Instead, this humble and now discredited device took on a job it never imagined: it became a platform with which to speak out about democracy in the public realm and to investigate design’s relationship to our country’s democratic ideals.

American presidents since Thomas Jefferson (a champion of classical principles in law and in architecture), have understood how design can communicate a political message. If you doubt this is true today, witness the masterful 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. With its less-than-subtle iconography — crosses visibly embedded in podiums, Godzilla-scale flags digitally billowing across a brace of fl at-screen monitors, and a stage thrust forward into the warm embrace of a receptive audience for the fi nale — every inch of the RNC was a public communiqué choreographed to a standard even Hollywood could envy.

Sadly, more design effort may have gone into the Republicans’ message-making in New York than into the mechanics of voting in the 2000 presidential election. In the now notorious Palm Beach County case, elections supervisor and neophyte graphic designer Theresa LePore crafted what she assumed would help the county’s elderly population read the slate of presidential options, a lengthy list that included not just George Bush and Al Gore and their running mates, but also Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan and Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, as well as six other fringe candidates and their running mates. Any graphic designer knows, the more entries you add to a fixed column, the smaller the type must become, and thus LePore’s "butterfly" ballot, with its names on opposing sides and arrows leading to the punch holes in the center became her design of choice.

It’s not unreasonable to imagine how the larger type that the butterfly ballot allowed might have been a smart idea had the voting apparatus been better able to accommodate it. LePore arranged Bush’s name on the left page with Dick Cheney’s in smaller type below. Gore was listed second alongside running mate Joe Lieberman.

A number of designers created fully immersive experiences with their Votomatics. Visitors are invited to step inside the curtain of @radical.media’s "Operation Agitation" booth to partake in the voting process. But press the metal stylus to punch out the chad behind any hole besides the Bush-Cheney ticket and a haptic shaking and loud jarring noise cause you to reconsider. Less sinister, and with the hope of engaging viewers in a helpful way, is Allan Wexler’s transformation of the Florida artifact into his "National Voting Registration Booth." Pull up a chair to his compact table, fill out your registration form, and Wexler’s booth handily provides even the mailer and stamp with which to register. Two architecture offi ces saw refl ections of Las Vegas in the voting process. While not actually functional, Craig Hodgetts and Hsin-Ming Fung’s "C*H*A*D — Crap-Shoot Handling of American Democracy" and James Stewart Polshek’s "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" both riff on what democracy would yield if voting were the result of a slot machine’s random number-generating algorithms instead of unreliable — if not occasionally random c holes in a punch voting card. Is the slot machine a more accurate metaphor for the democratic process?, they ask.

Sheer poetics infuse more than a few projects. An elegiac sense of the struggle for equality throughout history is evoked by Maira Kalman’s embroidered sampler, draped shroud-like over her booth. Stitched into the white linen is a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 address to Congress. "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, it reads. "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis’s booth, ’Bellow,’ heaves a deep, audible sigh as the case that once housed a voting apparatus mechanically opens and shuts, exhaling in frustration and weariness, while Anderson Architects’s booth "Nervous?" makes manifest many voter’s feelings about the November 2004 election by literally shaking and twitching as the days count down to the day America casts its votes. And Stefan Sagmeister hijacks the entire booth to use it as a means of communication by having it pulverized into several colors of powdery granulate. "It is a symbol of how, in those weeks in Florida, the voting booth did away with the regular democratic process, ground it into little pieces, and then reconstructed those little pieces into something new, something visualized by the new authors rather than the voting public." Sagmeister returns the favor by deploying the pulverized pieces to spell out a text of his own.

These are just a few of the exuberant commentaries and boundless variations on a theme that the design and art communities returned for THE VOTING BOOTH PROJECT, an exhibition where design and democracy meet — or perhaps in this case collide. What clearly emerges is a sense that these talents have no shortage of wit, critique, eloquence, purpose, and passion to contribute on issues affecting our social realm. On behalf of Parsons School of Design, I am deeply grateful to each of them for the time and creativity they poured into this project and their commitment to the issues at hand.

Chee Pearlman
Curator