Ceremonial Habits: Looking for Liturgy in Design
March 10th, 2009 in Web Design Culture
by: Matthew Griffin
What is culture without ceremony? From the grotesque ritual child sacrifice of the ancient Carthaginians to the inauguration of a modern American president, a culture is defined by its liturgy. These liturgical ceremonies shine forth through time as a symbol of the essence of a people. Without ever peeking into the life of a particular individual within a culture, we can infer astonishingly accurate knowledge about his daily life simply by studying the liturgy of his people. In recent years liturgy has become one of the primary battlegrounds of theology and philosophy. As the tendrils of postmodernism slither quietly into the thoughts of western culture, a new question is being asked: liturgy or not?
In my opinion, this is a silly question and not at all in touch with reality. Liturgy is so intrinsic to humanity that it will inevitably rise even in the process of being squashed. We can see this in modern Christian churches who have spurned liturgy as "dead orthodoxy" (interestingly, a term introduced by the father of Christian existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard). In the process of ridding their services of all appearances of the old Christian liturgy, they have unwittingly developed a new liturgy of their own. It may not look like the liturgy of the historical Christian church but it's a liturgy nonetheless. And now modern-modern churches, recognizing the tradition bubbling up around them, break free yet again to take another stab at a liturgy-free church service. They purposefully scramble the order of their service every week to be absolutely certain that no tradition sneaks back in. The style of each song must be different, and the graphics projected up on the wall are rotated out every week. But in all this frantic squirming and writhing to shake liturgy, I would argue that they have actually created a new liturgy—a liturgy of chaos. Liturgy lives on.
The resiliency of liturgy isn't confined to the Church—far from it. I recently attended my sister's graduation at Texas A&M University, and I couldn't help but notice the vivacious liturgy of the whole event. It was a high church affair indeed: robes, music, frilly hats and batons, sermons praising the glory of humanity. When all the graduates had their diplomas, the humanist pastor stood and gave a touching benediction to an audience of tear-filled eyes, exhorting them to stay in school (paraphrase, of course). My point here is simply that liturgy is everywhere and it is unavoidable.
Good Liturgy / Bad Liturgy
Once you accept that liturgy is inseparable from humanity, you're faced with a new question: good liturgy or bad liturgy? Possibly the most powerful aspect of liturgy is that it connects the present with the past. As we participate in a liturgical ceremony we are connected by a common practice to those who came before us. This has profound meaning for the Christian church. In participating in a liturgically rich church service, the individual Christian is at once humbled by the great heritage and tradition passed down through the ages but also obligated to test and try that tradition against an even older tradition—a higher tradition: the word of God. Good liturgy brings us together in truth with our predecessors; bad liturgy brings us together in error.
The Liturgy of Design
The liturgy of design is more subtle than the liturgy of the church. Much of it is performed by individuals or very small groups. But if we are to take an integrated view of all of life and faith, it is just as important as the liturgy of the church. The liturgy of design is in the work processes we employ, our award ceremonies, and the conferences we attend.
Our work processes are probably the most pragmatic of the three. They're not rich in symbolism but they are traditions, some developed by us and some passed down from mentors and respected industry leaders, and carried out with religious ferver. But before any of these processes could be created, their creators had to decide upon an objective. Before a work process is created, some designer somewhere has to determine what the product of that process should be and why. As those processes are passed from designer to designer and filter down into the broader design culture, they begin to be accepted indiscriminately. They become part of the daily liturgy and ritual of the designer. Through this process it becomes easy for Christian designers to accept pragmatic processes whose original objective is completely contrary to the Christian worldview. In this way—through design tradition—a Christian designer may be harnessed and put to work furthering the cause of a competing worldview. This is why it's important to study the processes we use. We should always be wary of our objective, the processes we use, and how they relate to our ultimate objective of bringing glory to God.
As for design conferences and award ceremonies, they are a bastion of secularist liturgy. A perfect example is the SXSW Interactive Conference I will be attending this week in Austin, TX. It's a celebration of web design culture complete with nightly parties, and topped off with a formal award ceremony. Is it wrong for there to be web design conference liturgy? Not necessarily. But as Christians we must be aware that there is one and be aware of what it symbolizes. Far from a call to retreat from such gatherings, this is a call to lead them. What would a design conference led by solid, worldview-conscious Christians look like? I'm not sure exactly, but I know that it would be excellent and engaging—something Christian and non-Christian designers could participate in and benefit from. Oh, and the liturgy would be great.
- 0 Comments
- 1513 Views