What is Craft Future and Other Questions
Craft and Future is my thesis project for Bachelor in Design at National Institute of Design which I am doing under the guidance and sponsorship of the Busride labs.
The Busride labs is a research and experimental lab led by Ayaz Basrai based in Goa. It deals with Heritage Conservation, Cities and Speculative futures of India
Why I am doing this project?
The research project aims to examine traditional crafts in respect to modern technologies and the futures they would bring. Can these technologies change the way the crafts work ?
At the same time it also aims to take the larger craft practice and craft process and see how a craft approach can change how we develop technology, how we make cities and how we imagine the future, can we develop algorithms in small communities ? A lot of this project has to do post industrial — centralisation of technology and power.
What is this craft I am talking about ?
Is it handicraft, digital craft, or the ‘craft’ of doing something ?
Honestly I don’t know the answer yet. Craft is a word as wide open and elusive as Art and Design. It is a way of living, it is the process followed, it is the effort put into something , it can even be a way of thinking. It’s really broad and I haven’t even started to scratch the surface.
According to David Pye ( A professor of Furniture Design at Royal College of Art), Craft is something which involves care and risk. The quality of result is maybe not as important as it seems. The craft contains very subjective and personal decisions and the object becomes the documentation of the effort put in.
Esther Leslie similarly mention that the work of craft is similar to storytelling and embodying time and meaning through practice.
But for the purpose of this project, I want to deal primarily with ‘crafts’ which involve making something, preferably tangible and for someone else. So this definition of craft is closer to design than art. There is at least one more stakeholder in this study of craft, whether it be the market, the user or the audience. It has a room for negotiation with forces outside of the craftsperson and is not primarily a medium of self-expression.
Glenn Adamson’s view on origin of craft is quite interesting in context of this project, He claims that craft is actually a modern invention. There was no craft before Industrialisation. Craft started existing in juxtaposition of Industry and Vice versa, they don’t exist without each other.
On a similar line Edward Syed on the topic of orientalism writes that Orient was an Invention of the West to define its identity.
In Adamson’s words:
“craft remains the most effective way of materializing beliefs, transforming world around us and (less positively) controlling others”
Adamson interestingly also talks about design, according to him technical drawings and plans are a way to exercise control over the freewill of craftsmen who primarily work through conceptual ideas. This observation puts forth a big challenge for my approach to this project. The project needs me to step outside of my design saviour role and get into more of a facilitator and interface and sometimes just an observer.
There is a lot to cover in what craft means exactly and especially the politics of it. This where I am most interested in. The evolving definition would be covered in upcoming dispatches dealing with Walter Benjamin, Mahatma Gandhi and M.P. Ranjan Among others.
What is the future ?
The future is a lot of things and it is very hyped these days in design. I am primarily interested in the new upcoming technologies like 3D Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence(?), Blockchains and Tangible interfaces and exploring there place in craft and design processes, from the level of prototyping,concept iteration and all the way to brief. This is very design Jargon here but what the kind of preferable future I am trying to explore is the one where technology is accessible to everyone, power is decentralized and the status quo is constantly questioned.
A big part is to explore not just how crafts would change with time through new technologies and new markets which will emerge. But also how can we use craft thinking and approach and put them into our Cities, Governments, The Internet , Artificial Intelligence and so on.
The aim here is to look for a preferable future through craft. That’s one of the reason why the project keeps its name as craft future and not future of craft or craft of future.
Here In context of Craft and Tech, I would like to highlight a few things which came up during my reading of unbox field notes on Craft and Tech between Jon Rogers and Andrew Prescott, according to jon a craft approach is about engagement with material and its about the making. Not about aesthetics,efficiency or results.
He draws some contrasts between craft and a design approach:
- Settling in situation vs Problematizing
- Building relationship vs Solving Issues
- Making things fit vs Fixing things
- Community vs Industry
- Slow and Flexible vs Fast and Agile
In context of IOT he talks about how the current industrial production of technology focuses on a Tens of Million approaches which centralizes the data and power in hands of a few people and companies. Whereas what a craft based approach would focus on is Millions of tens model where these devices are in smaller clusters, more customized and have more ownership. Much like how a potter would make small batches of pots which would work in the context of the village sustaining its economy and culture, but through mass manufactured chinese plastic pots, the lota starts exercising economic and cultural control over the village. The control is especially visible in technology business today where you are not allowed repair devices you own, much less talk about building your own.
In my limited capacity I would also try to take a look at the open source movement, maker culture and digital crafts. In upcoming dispatches.
What is the Scope and Methodology ?
To start with the scope, In this project I would be primarily exploring the craft of pottery and cane weaving primarily due to there universal nature and ease of availability and testing out my hypothesis and experiment on them.
On the theory side I would be primarily looking at AI, Smart Cities and Internet (and connected devices).
The inquiry is divided in 3 channels:
- Process, Interventions in contemporary craft processes.
- Framework, Analysis of how craft functions
- Design Discourse, A critical look at modern design practice
1.Process
The process channel would deal with experiments in technology and craft process primarily with traditional craft, a search for a hybrid between digital craft and handcrafts. Also with a critical look at artifacts would such a craft produce in future.
2. Framework
Framework channel would look at the power structures and craft thinking and would explore how the question of market,city,the internet and life. Can we redistribute power,control and subvert the status quo.
3. Design Discourse
Discourse is perhaps the most self critical channel would try to critically look at the design practice. Starting with the India Report by Charles and Ray Eames and later this project itself.
What is Upcoming Next ?
In the coming weeks I am taking a workshop at the National Institute of Design on AI and Design, which would explore power relations of man and machine in design process.
I would be working on new ceramic manufacturing processes through 3D printing.
Would be visiting and documenting the craft of cane furnitures in photogrammetry glory.
Some AI experiments here and there, some LotAI
And continuing to write different takes on the good old Eames report.
and some opinion pieces here and there on this blog.
Follow the Instagram from updates and random experiments.
If you want to access anything related to the project, my whole working folder is available here.
Thank you for your time.
