0x00 - The tools we use
Okay, sometimes I just wanna write out some thoughts, like a blogpost. And this is my website, I can do whatever the fuck I want.
A topic I am often thinking about is the tools we use, how we relate to them,
what implications they bring and what to make of all of that.
So what’s a tool? Really it is an extension of our self. When I use a camera I
see the world through the camera. It becomes a part of my perception.
Similarly when I paint, the brush becomes an extension of my imagination. One
that allows me to transfer an image from my mind onto paper.
When we talk to one another, we use our voice or hands to transmit thought. When
we use a pen and paper, we are able to record those thoughts. But our
recorded expressions, photos, writings, paintings, etc. are not a perfect
recording from our minds. The tools we use to record them alter how we inform
them. A charcoal sketch will look different from an oil painting. A handwritten
text will convey a different tonality than an audio recording of our vioce.
Me being a craftswoman, I think a lot about tools. How to make a tool. How to
make the tool that makes the tool. How the tools I have at my disposal inform
and constrain how I construct something. If all I have is a file, I will have to
engineer my way around not having to drill holes. If I have a 6-axis CNC mill, I
might end up with a far more complex construction, being able to shave off
unneded material, optimize shapes for optimal stress dispersal, etc.
But in my craft, there is a disconnect at a certain point. Once I’m too far from
using the tools made by the tools made by the tools I can make myself, they
become magic. A metal 3d printer is magic. While I can probably make all the
mechanical components, I do not have the ability to create the optics,
electronics or even the raw materials without tapping into complex
hyperindustrial processes that go far beyond the skills of a single craftswoman.
By introducing magic, we loose all the constraints but we also loose touch to the material. Now, do we actually need to touch the material? What for? It certainly doesn’t have feelings. And so doesn’t the machine I’m making a sparepart for. So it’s about the person who owns said machine and their feelings?
Now, everything you do by your own will is a work of art. And in art, we do care
about emotions, right? No one with a beating heart would say the conditions and
circumstances in which a piece of art is created don’t matter. And this makes me
think about the tools we use to create art.
Is there a point at which we loose touch to the material? Not in some only
vinyl sounds properly warm dipshit way. But during creation, when we use magic.
By magic I mostly refer to tech. Computers, digital cameras, etc. Only someone
who never went outside could claim that art created using magic is less. Yet
some of us, or at least me, have that feeling of loosing touch when using magic.
I am typing this text right here on a computer. This is something I avoid like
the plague when I want to express™ an emotion. Nevertheless I live in an
age where the vast majority of art I consume is created or presented using
magic. And it never made me think less of it. This age makes me present my art using magic as well, even if it
was created using something as unmagical as a pen and a sheet of paper.
This isn’t me calling everyone to go back to wood, oil paint and bird feathers.
This is me trying to figure out why I tick that way. Because my life would be
sort of easier if I felt like doing photography without having to develop
film. If I felt like making music without having to spend money I don’t have on
synthesizers, mixers and tapes. If I would feel like writing without dragging a
fucking mechanical typewriter to the park, catching all the unwanted attention.
The most pathetic thing is that I don’t understand those purists who say using
magic is bad. I often ridicule them. Yet I am the one with the typewriter in the
park. “I swear I am not a hipster, I am one of the good ones” makes me wanna
scratch my eyes out.
Sorry if you came here for an answer. If I had answers I’d be rich and pay someone to ghostwrite my substack.