Introduction Fuse98Critique Fuse98Crow and LaboratoryGarrett and LetterrorAnti-Rom, Skot and DownstairsLook and Listen  fuse98 san francisco 270598 > 290598 >
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David Crow was one of the first speakers and he gave a slick and inspiring talk. He is a designer, now teaching, fascinated by popular expression - by what he calls "symbolic creativity" the way each of us express ourselves through the arrangement of our homes, our clothes, our language.

His work on corporate marks for individuals was a systemisation of this and grew specificially out of his interest in graffiti. He invited "ordinary people" to place some stones on a piece of paper in whatever pattern they wished. he then asked them to number the stones. In this way he obtained the anchors and the paths for creating a sign. This became the individual's corporate mark - a sign in an unknown language. But, he pointed out, it only takes agreement to make a linguistic community, agreeing what sign means what. Thus he envisages "an international group of individuals" recognising the signs of this unknown language.

His CD-ROM "the forest of signs" is coming out soon on the Laboratory label.

The director of Laboratory, Mike Williams, gave an introduction to the label (founded by Neville Brody) and to his own work - really excellent - including the visuals for Mission Impossible - all done in Director.

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