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Oftentimes, creatives are viewed as people working in the state of inspiration, pushed forward by impulses of new ideas, put in the category of irrational, artsy beings. Whoever believes that, clearly doesn’t realise that it all comes down to ‘unglamorous, disciplined labor’. [1]

‘Conditional Design Manifesto’ offers a new approach, shifting from creating objects to creating tools and systems for creating objects. It removes designer to some extent from the equation, reshapes the process so that it sustains itself. Way to hack the system! Conditional design also draws from what is around us, gains insight from what’s already there, in order to create something new, by means of logic and principles. [2]

An excellent example of conditional design in action (speaking of hacking) is object-oriented programming. As Daniel Shiffman (2008) explains, within the program, one initiates an object, its functions and abilities, and leaves it to itself to happen, to function, to lead an existence in its domain within the rules put on a new, conditioned, artificial reality. [3]

He illustrates that concept by writing a simple program for a human object, which data would be height, weight, gender and so on, and its functions for example sleep, wake up, eat, ride some form of transportation. To dive a bit deeper, he says that this ‘structure is not a human being itself; it simply describes the idea, or the concept, behind a human being. It describes what it is to be human.’ This is a human template that Shiffman calls ‘class’, while the ‘object’ would be a certain human created from that template – you, me, your neighbour, and so on. [3]

This shows that you can create tools within tools (and within tools) which builds a whole lot more complex framework, but its goal remains very simple – to create things for us and function on its own.

In that way, creative endeavours shift to a mechanical process, with a limited (the smaller, the better) number of decisions on the way. Once given an input, it has its own momentum and should not be altered or distracted by uncertainties of human doubt. [2]

Still, its source, its idea comes from human origin. Even thought the process, once initiated, turns into a perpetuum mobile, the one who starts it and the one who decides when to stop, is a person. This is the role of a designer – to govern it, to manage it, to control it. The minor decisions throughout the process should be ideally left to the process itself, dependent on the conditions put by the designer. But those conditions, the real, major decisions, and therefore the authorship and the ownership, belong to the designer.

The process is like the universe that bursted from ‘Let there be light’, which makes the designer a deistic god who has the first and the last say but otherwise remains more or less indifferent and leaves the world to itself.

However, conditional design supports ‘using the methods of philosophers, engineers, inventors and mystics’ [2]. Following that claim, let’s add ‘one more choice on the methodological mix’, combine the practical with the surreal, and think about what was before the Big Bang that put the process in motion.

Elisabeth Gilbert (2015) shares her utterly magical theory on creativity based on the belief that among various living beings in this world, there are also ideas, intangible life-forms striving to be manifested, and the only way to achieve it is through ‘collaboration with a human partner’. She even finds argument in ancient Greek concept of eudaemonia, the highest form of happiness, which literally translated to English would mean ‘well-deamoned’, that is ‘taken care of by some external divine creative spirit guide’, followed by the Roman concept of a genius, a guardian spirit. Which in context of creativity means that they ‘didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that an exceptionally gifted person had a genius’. [1]

This sounds like a game changer – the ideas do not originate from humans, but influence them. They want humans to bring them to life, or rather to the physical realm. What does it make of humans then? 

We are the ones who get the work done, the facilitators, the mediators between the mystical and the material. By no means are we slaves, rather hard workers that make things happen. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a function or destiny, but maybe a power or capacity. We have the innate ability to sense ideas, and we can choose to dedicate to working with them (or not). But we do not own them. There is no hierarchy, no inferiority, no dependency. Instead, there is coexistence and collaboration. Just another example of symbiosis between different living beings in the ecosystem. [1]

In that sense, we’re not conducted or managed, but guided and supported. In the course of creative struggles something has our back. This is our service to the world, the way of showing gratitude to whatever made us happen. Going further, the process does not need any goal or reason. It’s an act of worship in itself. To create means to be a creation that gives thanks back to its creator by means of creative act. [4]

But the really interesting things start to emerge when we combine and overlap those concepts. Given that the designer resembles a god-like figure to the new created realm, and given that this world was created too, could our reality be then an act of worship as well, but on a higher level? 

And if the tool or system for creating objects is in a sense a small artificial universe or a program based on simplified principles taken from the context of the creator, just how far does it go? How many levels of realms, universes or programs could there be? 

And drawing again from Shiffman’s example of writing a template for a human being – could our ability to connect with ideas and make things happen be just another function defined by a human template? Could the god’s power to create new worlds be just one on the list of a god template?

[1] Gilbert, E. (2015) Big Magic, New York: Riverhead Books

[2] Blauvelt, A., Maurer L. (2013) Conditional Design Workbook, Valiz

[3] Shiffman, D. (2008) Learning Processing, Elsevier Inc.

[4] Cameron, J. ( 1994) The Artist’s Way, London: Souvenir Press

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I think I should add a few words about the idea of questioning our world, and of a world within a world within a world… I didn’t think about it when writing, but might have subconsciously referred to the film ‘World on a Wire’ (1973, Germany), a sci-fi thriller about scientists who wrote a program for an artificial world. As the plot unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that this world is a program too.

An unintentional source of inspiration could also be ‘Serial Experiments Lain’ a cyberpunk anime classic from 1998. The plot starts from the main character getting emails from a colleague who committed suicide, but develops into a set of unanswered questions, linking the digital network with both physical world and afterlife, a programmer with a god, an angel with a program and so on.