Embedded Files
You can skip the introduction (first 5 minutes of the video):
Where is the transition between craftsman and artist. Sennett argues that there is no art without craft. It is through technique that one builds expression. Therefore talking about the meaning of something is far less interesting than finding a physical manifestation.
Do the average person care about crafts? It is probably true that most people don't think too much about this. However, people are engaged in skilled activities all the time, and they are interested in improving these skills.
Updated 22 July 2016
Richard Sennett speaks about his book Craftsmanship in the context of Irving Penns photographs of craftsmen of small trades.
Sennett emphasises that there is a political value in the different pictures of the craftsmen. The men in the pictures tell another story than the one about small crafts becoming obsolete in the meeting with modern technology.
There is also a victim story where artists are deskilled because automation makes the manual skills obsolete. New crafts are, however, created all the time.
Penn took the craftsmen out of their workspace and into the studio. The politics of the pictures are the dignity of work rather than the oppressed worker.
Another way of showing craftsmen is shown by Francis Johnston's pictures, takes at Hampton Institute, which shown what work looks like when the worker is free.
Craftsmanship is about the development of skills within the individual combined with the knowledge of how these skills can relate to other persons skills.
Doing your own thing is the child's naive view on cooperation. Real cooperation is about the respectful division of labour. In complex hierarchies people are not on the same page, and often not nice. People always have to deal with these tensions in cooperation. The secret of good cooperation is about showing signs of recognition. The craft workshop is a place where these skills of everyday diplomacy can be learned.
Cooperation comes in two forms: the naive and the skilled. The naive cooperation . Skilled cooperation requires social competences. Sennett speaks about the master the journeyman and the apprentice, who hold different position in a workshop. The journeyman has learned the skills of the master, but he/she is still dependent.
There is always a important social side of a craft. Craftsmanship involves hands on learning (learning by doing) and a relationship between a master and a novice. This is a social relation of inequality. One do, however, also learn a lot for peers, a
Three elements makes a craftsman: (1)embedding of habit, (2) multiple solutions and a proactive approach to (3) problems solving and problem finding. Combined these becomes the craftsman's skills.
There is an intimate connection between problem finding and problem solving. New tools takes time to be translated into new techniques, and new techniques often comes out of doing things "wrong". It is often doing things wrong that turns out to be the most rewarding. teachers and students should therefore not always be obsessed with the right answers.
There is always different possible consciousness and tacit behavior ( learned unconsciousness). Craftsmen become confident because they have built up a repertoire of different ways to solve a problem.
Embodiment – we embody skills in ourselves.
In 1751 Diderot published the Encyclopedia of Arts and Craft. The craftsman was seen as the sensible citizen. A certain selfhood is expressed through being good at something.
Craftwork is slow and takes a lot of time. Sennett refers to the 10.000 hours rule, which translates into 3-4 hours a day for five to seven years. Getting something right the first time in not necessary skillful unless one is able to repeat the activity. By practising how to do something, through this slow time, our body changes what we do into skills.
It is dangerous to use technology that is too easy. We don't think as craftsmen when we use user friendly interfaces. Learning from a computer terminal, on screen learning, is very superficial. In order to learn something you have to dwell with its difficulty. When looking at Penn's photographs we see crafts that have disappeared, but not the disappearance of craftsmanship. What might be difficult is to recognise the crafts of today. Our challenge is not to be passive users of the tools of our time.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse