Art, Craft and Design Theory

As I am not interested in the differences, but the influences that art, craft, and design have on each other, I can conclude that they are one thing. They are the psychological conditions which have created human kind’s notion of being within a physical reality. I can consider these three seemingly different aspects of making as one, because the physical world their objects make up, can now be clearly defined by it’s opposite. Also a creation of human kind, our virtual reality is increasingly co-existing with our physical reality. If materiality has defined our psychological identities, how will a virtual reality, one void of physical things and space, begin to influence our notion of being? Following my interest in how art, craft, and design influence each other, I am becoming more and more interested in how our physical and virtual realities are also starting to influence one another.
I wonder, what type of psychological conditions have been established in our physical reality in order to conceive a virtual reality. Virtual reality is not limited in the same way our physical reality is. There is no gravity. Height, width, length - even the concept of time, has changed considerably. A reality has been created where the laws which govern our understanding of form and space are no longer conditional to understanding our relationship in an environment. By considering how the meaning of a physical object changes from form to concept, we may be able to have a fuller understanding of the virtual reality people are quickly accepting as evident. How we perceive an object as changed when its conditions or material make up also change, may be a starting point for rationalizing our notion of self within a virtual environment. This can be seen though an objects implied symbolism, its material manipulation, as well as changing its original intention.
Through an objects symbolism, meaning is derived when, as Mihay Csikszentmihaly, a psychologist, in his essay Design and Order in Everyday Life, “...it produces a sense of order in the mind.” Csikszentmihaly further explains that the objects we surround ourselves with are the concrete symbols that convey the messages of strong emotion between ones’ self and another. A possession passed down from generation to generation within a family is an example of an objects meaning as symbol of the original owner. In the past, the object was one of functionality, but now having survived life times, is embedded with the memories of it’s previous holders. The power of symbolism can also be used to establish a persons hierarchy amongst others.
An object which has been excessively elaborated on in design, also exchanges functionality for the power of symbolism. In this instance, the elaborative object is an example of how the original changes from something strictly physical to something conceptual. David Summers’ Real Spaces, gives us this example, “The king’s ceremonial sword in not the sharpest, but rather the most elaborate and therefore the most representational of power; the goal of its making is not efficiency relative to a function but efficacy in relation to a special, higher purpose.” Through decoration, the sword becomes the symbol of power, no longer a function of its form. An object still made from the same material and technique of it’s functional predecessor now holds meaning it previously did not. Through symbolism, an aspect of hierarchy as represented in the object, now sets an authoritative relationship between the user and the witness. Here we see that the symbolic object has relied on the intention of it’s functional predecessor, but is something new. Stripping away functionality and replacing it with elaborative elements, suggests that the holder of the symbolic object is also special. The holder, like the elaborative object, is intended for a higher purpose greater than the person who uses the standardized functional form. This approach to material as symbol, is similar to the understanding of our virtual reality. It was created with the material sensibilities of the functional physical world, but serves as it’s own entity; a symbol of our physical understanding. It was created from the developed notion of what Richard Sennett in The Craftsman, calls our material consciousness.
Sennett, a sociologist, explains that we have established our physical consciousness through the manipulation of material. Our intrigue with material happens when it is changed. Sennett states that this is done in three ways. When material goes through metamorphosis, when it is a recording of the maker’s presence, and when it becomes anthropomorphized. The craftsman utilizes all three of these methods of material consciousness when in the act of making but, for the purpose of this paper, I would like to focus on the former method of change. Metamorphosis, can be broken down into three separate categories of change. In this manner, material change can develop through type-form, meaning the thing can change within it’s own species. Mutation for instance, is an example of type-form metamorphosis. Joining a combination of two or more forms together and the concept of domain shift are also considered ways material changes through a metamorphic process. Domain shift, Sennett states, “...refers to how a tool initially used for one purpose can be applied to another task, or how the principle guiding one practice can be applied to quite another activity.” For example, the mortise-and-tenon joint in ship building derived from a seemingly different technique all together, that of the cloth join of warp and woof used in weaving. This is an example of a technical or skill based domain shift.
Shifting the domain of a principle beyond its original intention, can be seen in the creation of the virtual environment. The technical understanding of our material world, the principle of physics, shifted domains when we created the conceptualization of it, that which we call a virtual reality. Our previous knowledge of the physical helped us to formalize the idea of a virtual object or space. Even though neither object nor space exist in virtual reality, a vocabulary based in the previous principles of physics and material consciousness had to be utilized in order to create it. The physical world served as an educational matrix of which to conceptualize the virtual world off of. Due to which, we refer to the internet, the title we have come to know as our virtual reality, as a thing, even though it is not made of any material thing at all.
In another example of how a physical thing transfers from object meaning to conceptual meaning, Howard Risatti in A Theory of Craft, explains the difference between an objects function and its use. A utilitarian device has an intentionally designed purpose, it’s function, but anything with a certain amount of weight could also be a paper weight, it’s use. For instance, a teacup is crafted to hold a hot beverage, but a person could also use it to hold down loose papers. By doing so, we consider the object for the other qualities it possesses. As a hollow vessel, the teacup is one thing, as an object of mass, it is another. The notion of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade is similar to the differences between function and use. A coat rack screwed to a wall has the function of holding up articles of clothing. The same wooden plaque with hooks attached to it, when affixed to the floor, becomes a wonderfully inventive trip hazard, or in his case, art. The idea of the readymade was developed in the early twentieth century by Duchamp, and has had a profound impact on our perception of physical objects and their possibilities.
Considering the use of an object, beyond it’s intended function, has both helped and harmed our notion of what an object is. With imagination, an object can now be anything we want it to be. We are no longer constrained to identify it as one thing with only one function or purpose. Yet, by considering all the possibilities of that object, instead of utilizing it for it’s one designed purpose, that object loses it’s original value and meaning. We forget what it is and how it relates to us as makers and users. The utilitarian object now becomes merely another ambiguous thing. If we perceive physical reality in the same manner as we do a readymade object, for it’s use and not it’s made function, an alternant reality could be conceived from our understanding of it. That is to say, physical reality has been considered for it’s other possibilities- as a system or concept to base a virtual reality off of.
We have created a reality based on the immaterial values which have stemmed from our developed material consciousness. The values of information, communication, and entertainment, stem from the results of our physical interaction with material. Now separated from physical reality, these immaterial values are what define our notion of the virtual world. If a world can be defined not by objects and space, but by information, can the constructs which make up the Internet environment be considered as states of being? As solids, liquids and gases are states of physical being, will information, communication, and entertainment be virtual states of being? What impact do these states of being have on a persons psyche?
Through the examples of symbol, domain shift metamorphosis, and the readymade, the functional object has been accepted as conceptual object. If we associate what an object is with our notion of the physical world, it is easier to consider that it too, can be changed in meaning for the purpose of conceptualization. I propose that that is exactly what has happened less than twenty years ago with the public advent of the Internet. To fully understand the implications of this, and furthermore, if our physical reality has influenced the make up of our virtual one, then a perspective of the opposite can be theorized.
Stefano Marzano in The New Everyday - Views on Ambient Intelligence, shares a visual description of the new physical reality to come in the next ten years. Marzano states, “Ambient Intelligence can, to a degree, be thought of as an enabling and an extension of the Internet. This amorphous, networked technology is already breaking down the barriers of time and space.” He further describes a typical household now void of its black boxes; meaning our contemporary appliances like televisions and computers will soon be obsolete. Instead, our traditional, unintelligent objects will be infused with hidden technologies, thus rendering them “subjects, active and intelligent actors in our environment.” By eliminating more material objects from our physical existence, we will live with less obtrusive junk. Marzano suggests that by embedding technology into the objects we do need, such as chairs, tables, and beds, we still hold onto our cultural values of information, communication, and entertainment.
Content then becomes not specific to form, but to value. Meaning, If the physical reality of tomorrow is an extension of the formless content that makes up the Internet, then the objects of the future will possess a de-formed ambiguity. I propose then, that this will make some weird looking objects. Acknowledging the impact that the virtual world is having on our physical one, I am left to ponder why any further analysis between the distinctions of art, craft and design is relevant. By considering the broader perspective that all three disciplines of making are used to create physical objects, we will have a fuller understanding of the morphing realities of the physical and virtual.
Regardless of the psychological condition of which it was made, the object serves a physical function of defining space. This relationship is the applied experience of understanding the function of physicality. A condition which I believe is slowly slipping from our consciousness due in part by living within two different sensibilities of reality at the same time. By creating a space defined by objects which serve all the functions of art, craft, and design, beyond a physically standardized manner, a new meaning is given to it. Kurt Schitters’ Merzbau installations are examples of how the unlimited sensibilities of the virtual could be made material. Brian O’Doherty states in Inside the White Cube the Ideology of the Gallery Space, that the Merzbau is a combination of design, sculpture, and architecture; nullifying the forms individually, in order to create one symbolic meaning and experience through form and space.
The original Merzbau of the early 1920‘s and 30‘s, was before it’s time. Taking time into consideration, the reconstruction of the Merzbau today could simulate what is psychologically necessary for understanding a virtual environment. As the original installation is made up of discarded construction refuse, materials that were repurposed for the use of their unique shape, not for their structural function, the Merzbau now becomes symbolic in meaning through it’s ambiguous reformalization of material. Like the virtual world, we relate to the Merzbau because it is familiar in some manner, but is not easily quantifiable. It is a hybrid space defined by quasi-recognizable objects and conditions. To reconstruct the Merzbau today would be to produce a sense of order in ones mind of what the virtual world is. It would create an understanding that it is a symbol of what we hold as our deepest possession. Our understanding of place in the physical world.