2008-02-09

Helvetica and Manufactured Landscapes: The Triumph of Emotions?

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on December 24, 2007.


At some point in my life, I learned to distrust emotions (or, more colloquially, feelings). Emotions, after all, were fleeting, fickle, and prone to manipulation. They were also morally problematic: I could feel that a course of action was correct when, in fact, it was morally detrimental. Only when tempered and molded by an a priori list of dispassionate principles could emotions serve any beneficial end. Otherwise, they were to be relegated to the sidelines of one's life and faith.


Such a perspective can serve a useful purpose, especially when we are in danger of allowing our emotions to get the better of us, dictating every aspect of our lives. However, an excessive distrust of emotions—along with an excessive reliance on a priori rationality—seems to serve as a denial of who we are: whether we like it or not, we are emotional creatures, created by a God who exhibits those very same emotions.


Two recent documentaries implicitly play with the idea of human feelings—specifically, our responses to the aesthetic—and demonstrate that emotions are not simply one attribute among many in the human condition, but perhaps the overriding attribute.


The first documentary is Gary Hustwit's Helvetica (2007). Yes, that's right: someone has made an entire documentary about a font. However, what makes Helvetica special is its pervasiveness: from corporate logos to magazine advertisements to street signs, the Swiss-designed typeface is simply the font of choice for designers everywhere. No, designers don't always use Helvetica, but its simple and modern construction makes it an easy choice. Easy choices become defaults. Defaults become the way we "intrinsically" look at the world — which, for all practical purposes, becomes the way the world is.


Hustwit's is an outstanding documentary because it not only illuminates the pervasiveness of Helvetica—thus allowing us to spot it in our own surroundings—but it also positions the font within a wider sociological context. Helvetica arose in post-War Europe, at a time when designers were looking to break from the horrors of fascism and genocide. They wanted a fresh aesthetic to match their desire for a new world. Helvetica fit nicely within their milieu: the font looked clean, crisp, sophisticated, and forward-looking. In the United States, Helvetica was seen as a breath of fresh air within marketing circles. Graphic design in the 1950's was a horribly cluttered melange of ugly typeface and tacky images. When Helvetica came along, it allowed marketers to revamp their ads and to present their clients in a cleaner, sharper light.


As the use of Helvetica spread, however, it became an object of scorn for some designers who saw it as stifling originality and creativity. Since it was seemingly everywhere, Helvetica became seen as the "establishment" font. Designers rebelled by creating alternatives, and in the 90's, some were inspired by the "grunge" aesthetic, producing edgy (and perhaps unreadable) typefaces.


In the end, however, Helvetica has proven triumphant. Designers have returned to the ol' reliable, realizing that it is not only a well designed font, but perhaps the best font ever devised (seriously). As such, it appears that our built environment will continue to be dominated by Helvetica, and we won't even notice since its elegant simplicity just seems to blend effortlessly into our everyday objects. As a clean and simple part of our visual landscape, Helvetica seems to provide us with a subconscious level of utility and pleasure — in short, Helvetica persists because it feels right.


Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes (2006) also examines our emotional responses to the aesthetic world, but it takes the opposite perspective by exploring what feels horribly wrong. Baichwal's documentary traces the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has made a career of capturing images that evoke awe, shock, and even horror among viewers. He focuses on how humans have altered their surroundings through mining and manufacturing and argues that we have every reason to define those surroundings as landscapes — albeit "artificial," non-traditional, and (to most) ugly.


In recent years, Burtynsky has done a lot of work in China, since that country's industrial boom has resulted in unprecedented levels of environmental change. The scale of mining and manufacturing in China is simply mind-boggling: what impressed me most were Burtynsky's work on Chinese coal mining [see picture] and the construction of the infamous Three Gorges Dam [see picture], both of which exhibit China's insatiable demand for energy. Burtynsky sees his role as that of environmental documentarian, recording the seemingly inevitable result of combining globalization with China's intense economic growth.


To his credit, Burtynsky doesn't overly politicize his work. He notes that he prefers to let viewers internalize the images on their own terms, to reach conclusions at their own pace. The movie itself follows this philosophy, as we hear relatively little dialogue and spend most of our time looking at both Burtynsky's work style and his finished products. (The lack of dialogue turned out to be helpful in my case since—through a usability problem with my DVD—I missed a chunk of the English subtitles.)


Yet, Burtynsky's avoidance of overt political commentary doesn't obscure his underlying message. It is obvious that he finds highly troubling the way in which we have altered our landscapes, and China is simply a newer, faster (much faster) variation on our old industrial practices. Burtynsky also knows his audience; he knows that most Westerners who see his photographs will be disturbed at the sheer destruction and waste created by a world that is increasingly dependent on both old-school energy (e.g., coal, hydroelectric power) and new electronic products (e.g., computers) full of toxic materials. Burtynsky doesn't have to say much because his pictures by themselves produce the desired emotional response.


So is our tendency to be easily swayed by emotional responses a bad thing? Marketers (like those who rely so heavily on Helvetica) want us to feel good about their clients, regardless of what those clients may or may not do. Activists and artists, on the other hand, often want to make us a feel bad in order to wake us from our doldrums so that we campaign for change. At some level, marketers and activists are engaging in the same practice, convincing (manipulating?) us to follow a particular line of thinking. Thus, there are many times in which it is helpful to have an a priori list of principles so as to test the feelings and images that bombard us each day.


On the other hand, we also must be wary of an excessive skepticism in the face of emotions. After all, just because X produces an emotional response in us doesn't mean that it and/or the response are wrong. The response could simply complement what we already know about X. Strong feelings should provoke us to investigate: Why do we feel as we do? Are our feelings justified? Are we receiving a holistic picture, or do our feelings result from a partial (maybe skewed) perspective? Thus, I recommend both Helvetica and Manufactured Landscapes not only because they are fascinating, but because they provide us with an opportunity to investigate more deeply our emotional lives.

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