A pleasure to read and ponder. Maybe an additional path - the Greek root of poet is "maker". It's not the idea, it's the doing and the resulting expression that maketh the maker.
Regarding the concrete wall in the lower left quadrant: the presence of the chain-link fencing indicates that it probably is a case of "No microdecisions get made, no artists are involved." An interior wall in a basement, or a parking structure. But it's very close Brutalist architecture, which is definitely an aesthetic choice: to reveal and celebrate the underlying materials of construction. In the Catholic cathedral in Giradot, Colombia, for example, an architect managed to convince his very conservative clients that soaring spirituality could be conveyed by blocks of poured concrete. The relative lack of decorative microdecisions, I'm sure, made the budget work.
I make furniture. It’s NOT my day job but I’d love for it to be. Part of the making of the furniture involved inventing a system of hardware to hold it together.
But most of my furniture making really in loves more design work than making because my parts are mostly made by really clever machines that do some version of CNC.
Because of this I am hesitant to call myself an “artist.” “Craftsman” maybe? “Designer” certainly. And yet my pieces have been in art galleries. But while I make lots of “micro decisions” during the design process, once the actual furniture is getting built (one might call it “making license plates,” I suppose) I have robots do the labor. Although I suppose NS doesn’t personally print all the books he writes so maybe that’s comparable?
If you go see some of Donald Judd’s installations in Marfa, TX you’ll find out that he had various parts made in factories and then much of the assemblies were made by people who worked for him. But it seems like Judd is an “artist” to me.
One thing computer-aided (stress on the word “aided” here) has done, I think, is unlocked a lot of creativity from people who don’t have decades of experience honing a craft. It gives access to “idea-havers” to enter the world of (“artist”? “maker”?) with less experience than would have been required in the past. I’m still not sure how to feel about it - even in my own pursuits.
I DO think it will lead to a premium being put on work actually made by human hands. When I think about this I usually think immediately about the Sandbenders laptop case discussed in “Idoru” by William Gibson or to the paper-maker and other craftspeople to be found working for the Vickies in “Diamond Age.” In a weird way, the flaws found in works made by actual human hands will make those objects more valuable I suspect.
Anyway, I’m not doing any “AI stuff” but there sure is a great big grey area in which I find myself and I feel like this article helps me explore it a bit.
Wow. I may take an age out of your book and make it required reading for my virtual high school students.
I’ve been thinking for sone time that we need to spend way time doing some version of metacognition as a general part of education. We need to spend way more time front loading the concept “why are we here and doing g this?” before launching into teaching the actual science or history or whatever. I think that could be a real game changer for academia.
A pleasure to read and ponder. Maybe an additional path - the Greek root of poet is "maker". It's not the idea, it's the doing and the resulting expression that maketh the maker.
Regarding the concrete wall in the lower left quadrant: the presence of the chain-link fencing indicates that it probably is a case of "No microdecisions get made, no artists are involved." An interior wall in a basement, or a parking structure. But it's very close Brutalist architecture, which is definitely an aesthetic choice: to reveal and celebrate the underlying materials of construction. In the Catholic cathedral in Giradot, Colombia, for example, an architect managed to convince his very conservative clients that soaring spirituality could be conveyed by blocks of poured concrete. The relative lack of decorative microdecisions, I'm sure, made the budget work.
I make furniture. It’s NOT my day job but I’d love for it to be. Part of the making of the furniture involved inventing a system of hardware to hold it together.
But most of my furniture making really in loves more design work than making because my parts are mostly made by really clever machines that do some version of CNC.
Because of this I am hesitant to call myself an “artist.” “Craftsman” maybe? “Designer” certainly. And yet my pieces have been in art galleries. But while I make lots of “micro decisions” during the design process, once the actual furniture is getting built (one might call it “making license plates,” I suppose) I have robots do the labor. Although I suppose NS doesn’t personally print all the books he writes so maybe that’s comparable?
If you go see some of Donald Judd’s installations in Marfa, TX you’ll find out that he had various parts made in factories and then much of the assemblies were made by people who worked for him. But it seems like Judd is an “artist” to me.
One thing computer-aided (stress on the word “aided” here) has done, I think, is unlocked a lot of creativity from people who don’t have decades of experience honing a craft. It gives access to “idea-havers” to enter the world of (“artist”? “maker”?) with less experience than would have been required in the past. I’m still not sure how to feel about it - even in my own pursuits.
I DO think it will lead to a premium being put on work actually made by human hands. When I think about this I usually think immediately about the Sandbenders laptop case discussed in “Idoru” by William Gibson or to the paper-maker and other craftspeople to be found working for the Vickies in “Diamond Age.” In a weird way, the flaws found in works made by actual human hands will make those objects more valuable I suspect.
Anyway, I’m not doing any “AI stuff” but there sure is a great big grey area in which I find myself and I feel like this article helps me explore it a bit.
Well said. Thank you.
PS: this essay is now required reading for my postgraduate seminar on AI and authorship.
Wow. I may take an age out of your book and make it required reading for my virtual high school students.
I’ve been thinking for sone time that we need to spend way time doing some version of metacognition as a general part of education. We need to spend way more time front loading the concept “why are we here and doing g this?” before launching into teaching the actual science or history or whatever. I think that could be a real game changer for academia.