As a reflective essay, I wish to gather my thoughts on a series of readings I undertook over the past few weeks. Some, that projects the idea of the return of handicrafts to be a cry for outdation, and some that discuss the sensitivities the human mind, human touch, and human intervention bring along. Please scroll to the very bottom of this page to understand what these readings were.

We are at an interesting junction of creation as a society. A place where we can question the way forward, a place where we can make amends for the damage done, while also applauding the human race for its technological achievements as a whole. But before we question the way forward, I think we need to enter a place for us to pause and reflect.

Pause and reflect on – What crafts mean to us? What is our criteria from bringing machinery into our lives? Was it solely comfort? What is our idea of control when it comes to leading our very humanistic lives, living in very humanistic bodies that are yet to evolve, and we are a very long way from there, evolve into systems of functions that can compete with the pace of technology we’ve built for ourselves.

Through a series of these readings, I came to a realisation that we are running to be a society that likes everything easy. We are lazy. We crave comfort. We crave ease of life. And my fellow counterparts to this argument would bring in the idea, ‘what is wrong with that?’. But this is where we need to reflect, comfort – at what cost?

And this very thought echoed in my head as I read Norbert Weiner’s ‘What is Cybernetics?’ From the Human Use of Humans. In his chapter, he says

“It is a degradation of human to assign him to a purely repetitive task, which demands less than a millionth of his brain capacity.”

We are visual creatures. We are creative creatures. We are creatures of art, of aesthetics, of culture and creativity. We are social beings. We emote. We express. We create. And we destroy. Then why are we heading in a direction that restricts this creative expression?

In Spuybroek’s excerpt from ‘The Sympathy of Things’ (read my reflection on it here.), he mentions how

‘If all craft must move to design, then all labour must move to robotics’. I say it must not.

This statement appalls me. It appalls me as it is devoid of what human labour, can bring to the table. Where I cannot completely dismiss the impact of labour moving to machinery, it would be rather destructive to the concept of craft to devote all its creation to machines. In David Pye’s book ‘The Nature and Art of Workmanship’, he mentions the idea of how even the machinery requires human intervention. Even the tools used to create craft and design require the human mind to peep into the process, ideate the process, and automate only the mundane practices, the ones with repetition, the ones that cannot be left alone with creative autonomy.

I strongly associated with Weiner’s statement in the aforementioned chapter –

Those who suffer from a power complex find the mechanisation of man the simple way to realise their ambition

Norbert Weiner, What is Cybernetics.

This was one of my favorite quotes, as I can directly associate it with the result of the attempts of the Chinese mechanising most of the Indian handicrafts, and passing it as ‘handmade’. Where machinery is a work of art in its own, provides its own value, and brings forth confirmation of consistency and quality at its finest, it was never meant to compete with craft. Craft in its inherent way of existence was never meant for the purpose of mass-production. It was associated with the rich, who understood the value, who kept it alive, and who were willing to undertake its exorbitant price. Many artists, craftsmen and artisans realised the power in this, in reducing their art to a mere means of livelihood and putting their economic bystanding before the craft itself, and began selling these machine goods as handmade goods, thus reducing the very beauty, ability, and also the quality of the craft itself.

We’ve come a long way from wide eyes at crafts, to lost of trust in its practice. Culture is rooted in trust, and we gave the same in the hands of machinery.