Politics of Craft

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Thematic Project, trimester 3, 2013/14

tutor: Florian Cramer

Summary

The concept of 'crafts' has lately experienced a renaissance. We encounter it, most obviously, in DIY handmade film labs, hacker spaces, Fab Labs, printmaker workspaces, but also in socio-cultural initiatives and upper middle class-oriented lifestyle retail. (In Rotterdam and nearby, we find examples of all of the above: filmwerkplaats, RevSpace and PUSCII, PrintRoom and Mesh Print Club, Rotterdam Vakmanstad, Swan Market, to name only a few.)

Sociologist Richard Sennett wrote in 2008 that "craftsmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labor; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist; parenting improves when it is practiced as a skilled craft, as does citizenship" (The Craftsman, 9). In this definition, "craftsmanship" does not simply mean practical making, but leaves behind the classical Western dualisms of theory and practice, thinking and doing, the conceptual and the applied.

In our Thematic Project, we will research the history and the politics of this notion of crafts from the 19th century to today: in the socialist Arts and Crafts movement and in Martin Heidegger's fundamental ontology, in the radical politics of Russian constructivism and Bauhaus, as a political undercurrent in Fluxus and the Situationist International, its reinvention as 'Do-it-yourself' movements in post-1960s countercultures including punk, riot grrrl, hacker culture and media experimentalist subcultures.

This Thematic Project is not at all about the nostalgia for craftsmanship that currently abounds in the Netherlands and elsewhere, but a re-reading of post-industrial and ultimately post-digital craftsmanship as (left- as well as right-wing) avant-garde politics that does away with the oppositions that still define contemporary art and design (including the very differentiation between art and design).

The Project will leave room to focus on specific subject matters depending on students' preference. We could, for example, give particular attention to artist-run film cooperative movement and, on conversely, to Marianne van Boomen's fresh research on metaphors in contemporary media and how to hack them. Most likely, we will also make good use of the two consecutive events "Off the Press" and "zine camp" in Rotterdam on May 22nd-25th.

The Thematic Project will conclude with some still-to-be-determined form of public presentation at V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media in the last three weeks of June.

  1. Introduction and planning: Thurs. April 3rd: 2 hours 11:00 - 13:00
  2. Thurs. April 10: Discussion Richard Sennett, The Craftsman, Part one, chapter 1, The Troubled Craftsman, 19-53; please collect and bring along examples of art/design/media/other work to discuss in this context.
  3. Thurs. April 17th: Discussion John Ruskin, The Political Economy of Art (Addendum 8) & William Morris, News from Nowhere (chapter XV); please collect and bring along examples of art/design/media/other work to discuss in this context.
  4. (April 30th: May break)
  5. Wed. May 7th: Discussion Asger Jorn, George Maciunas, Henry Flynt + optionally Piet Zwart, Bauhaus and Russian constructivism.
  6. Mon. May 12th: Discussion of ideas for the V2_ show, collective research on punk DIY culture: Jamie Reid, Linder, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, Riot Grrrl culture in the 1990s + Henry Flynt
  7. Thurs. May 15th
  8. Wed. May 21st
  9. Wed. May 28th
  10. Wed. June 4th
  11. Wed. June 11th
  12. Wed. June 18th, individual tutoring on projects
  13. (build-up V2 show)
  14. Tue. June 24th, show opening at V2_
  15. (Wed. June 25th, assessments)
  16. Saturday June 28th, last day of V2_ show

Preliminary reading list

Met betrekking tot de 'schilderkunst' zal het onderwijs zeer ingrijpend gewijzigd moeten worden. Feitelijk zal de schilderkunstafdeling geheel moeten vervallen, indien men daardoor wenst te verstaan de primitieve methode waarbij met een bosje varkensharen, die aan een stokje gebonden zijn, kleurige materien op linnen worden uitgeborsteld. Daarvoor in de plaats zou veel aandacht besteed moeten worden aan synthetisch en beeldend tekenen, reclame, moderne reproductiemethoden, typografie, fotografie en haar beeldingsmogelijkheden; film, kleurgeving in de architectuur en in het stadsbeeld.
De rubrieken decoratieve kunst, kunstnijverheid en beeldhouwen kunnen op de wijze waarop ze plegen behandeld te worden, van geen belang voor de nieuwe levensidee geacht worden.
Er voor in de plaats moet een afdeling komen, waarin de industriële vormgevin­gen worden gedoceerd. Bestudering van moderne materialen in verband met industrië­le voortbrenging en de daaruit voorkomende vormconsequenties. Vooral aan de toepasbaarheid van deze materialen op meubels zal grote aandacht moeten worden geschonken. Laboratorium en modern geoutilleerde werkplaats zijn in verband daarmee noodzakelijk.
Parallel aan dit practische programma zal het theoretisch onderwijs moeten gegeven worden met uitsluiting van die rubrieken, welke als overblijfselen van een oud formalistisch leerprogram zich hardnekkig trachten te rechtvaardigen.
Bijzondere aandacht zal geschonken moeten worden aan de opvoeding der oude leerkrachten, voorzover die niet vervangen kunnen worden. Doel van deze opvoeding zou moeten zijn hen er van te doordringen, dat een 'kunst'akademie een instituut dient te zijn ter opbouw van de elementaire vormgevingen in deze en komende tijd; geen doorgangshuis voor aftandse kennis en onbelangrijke vaardigheid.
Het jonge geslacht heeft er recht op dat het opgevoed wordt voor de toekomst; wij hebben te voorkomen dat het behangen wordt met de maskers van het verleden.

With some grains of salt

Ideas for show at V2_

Individual ideas

  • no exhibition, just invite speakers who speak about what is the craft in their particular profession/occupation
  • parody of Swan Market/subversion of arts and crafts street market in V2_
  • artisan factory: creating a 6-day art-/design-making factory assembly line in V2_
  • divide V2_ into two spaces: one art space, one crafts space; create clashes/collapses of the two, simultaneously involve crafts people/designers and fine artists to let them work with the same materials
  • deskilling exercise: a deskilling show/process over the course of the week
  • advertising of a show that doesn't exist
  • reflect on DIY crafts as an ideology in times of economic crisis: capitalist/government-advocated resourcefulness, DIY as self-management in times of system failure (examples of Portugal and Nigeria)
  • one-week permaculture self-sustainability (alternatively: microeconomic) experiment in V2_, with documentation of failures; make use of Nikos in Greece and Caetano in Brazil
  • running a microbrewery or other crafts practice (their culture, technology and economy) as a contemporary example of arts & crafts

from Cae -
About micro economies. I'm here with my brother who has been struggling to establish a coffee brand which is pretty much a craft production. pretty much handmade with lots of artistic feedback on the blend and experimentations on tastes and shit. Its quite insteresting. He is getting quite famous in the chefs insdutries. Where two of the best chef in the country only serve his coffee, but still despite the fame, struggling hardcore to pay the bills in the end of the month.

  • walk to pop-up DIY entrepreneurs in Rotterdam, retelling the story of William Morris about London entrepreneurs
  • happiness/pleasure as currency
  • exchanging craft for craft; maintaining a constant amount of it at all time

Combined ideas

  • internal crafts/microeconomic experiment + external speakers
  • luxury paradox: how can arts/crafts efforts become self-sustainable without producing luxury goods?
  • consumer market of arts and crafts: authenticity in arts and crafts sold as a commodity
  • artists' survival camp: how artists who get put into the jungle of Rotterdam can survive with their skills/trade
  • showcase and documentation of existing micro economies: ask audience how to create micro economies in certain areas of the world (that have certain issues such as environmental pollution); conclude show with a public discussions of submitted ideas
  • show/fair "organic media design" ("organic media art") - media design take on arts and crafts


--> conclusion: practical experiment (addressing issues studied in this thematic project) that engage both us - as the artists - and the audience, possibly with elements of meta reflection (such as lectures/discussions).

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