Ben Van Dyke

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Benjamin Van Dyke, born 1976, suffers from Acute FSU Syndrome. With an obsessive attraction to peeling away the layers of the universe, Van Dyke is dedicated to the pursuit of discovery in the field of Design and exposing a paradox hiding in plain sight. (More on that later...). In learning that his compulsion to Fuck Shit Up was terminal, he sacrificed a successful career as an Art Director and committed himself to a life of Benevolent Flux. Van Dyke's practice consists of improvised exhibitions of fragmented, dissected narratives and cryptic autobiographical rants that respond to space and intuition more than a mastered technique. Van Dyke studied at Kendall College of Art & Design, the University of Michigan and was a 2006 Fulbright Fellow to The Netherlands. He is now the head of the Graphic Design program at the University at Buffalo and sits on the Board of Directors for the educational non-profit, DesignInquiry.

benjamin.vandyke@fulbrightmail.org

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DesignInquiry (dot net)

The mission of DesignInquiry, a non-profit educational organization, is to contribute to the interdisciplinary discourse of design in three ways. FIRST, DesignInquiry brings together thinkers and makers from diverse fields to research and identify an urgent and timely topic. SECOND, DI organizes team-based gatherings around the chosen topic in which each participant contributes and is equally responsible for the content. THIRD, DesignInquiry produces a publication sharing the outcomes to inform and inspire design practice.

I. FIRST, DesignInquiry brings together thinkers and makers from diverse fields to research and identify an urgent and timely topic.
Responding to design’s increasing interdisciplinarity, DesignInquiry encourages collaboration across fields, including, but not limited to, graphic design, new media design, industrial design, architecture and interior design, landscape and urban design, as well as the visual and performing arts, sciences and humanities. DesignInquiry welcomes participants regardless of professional or academic affiliation or status. Responding to design’s increasing sphere of influence, DesignInquiry encourages research in the form of production, analysis, criticism, or theorizing in a variety of media in order to probe design’s relationship to contemporary culture and culture’s relationship to contemporary design.

II. SECOND, DI organizes team-based gatherings around the chosen topic in which each participant contributes and is equally responsible for the content.
DesignInquiry is founded on a principle of full immersion—in a topic, in a group, in a location—and a belief in the unexpected convergence—of ideas, of personalities, of spaces both physical and intellectual. Each participant takes a turn on the stage, in the wings, in the audience.
Though each DI gathering is organized around a chosen topic, the schedule is intentionally fluid. Program content evolves according to the interests, needs, and dynamics of the group. Innovation, improvisation, and accommodation are required of all participants as they inform, shape, and respond to presentations, workshops, discussions, assignments, even meals. As participants design, produce, and consume breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they digest the research through non-stop discussions and debates. Meals are not just sustenance and celebration; they are part of DesignInquiry’s work.

III. THIRD, DesignInquiry produces a publication sharing the outcomes to inform and inspire design practice.
The research produced at theme-based DesignInquiry gatherings is the starting point for further, and necessary, work that will eventually find its way into the DesignInquiry Journal. Conceived as a collaborative laboratory, the Journal gives gathering participants, as well as other contributors, an opportunity to test their research, articulate their conclusions, confront new questions, and commence a dialogue with the broader design community, i.e. those who did not attend the gathering. The DesignInquiry Journal is a vehicle for sharing design knowledge and shaping design discourse.

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