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Craft, science AND THE VISUAL ARTS

Don Ellis

Ellis examines 'craft' as source of contemplation; "an indispensable mediator for, and an embodied element in, the production of both science and visual art".

Although craft is considered a strand of the visual arts its role is often ascribed merely as a dispensable vehicle for making ideas visible while its objects are categorised as utilitarian and thus disqualified as mediators of aesthetic or intellectual interest. These contentions ignore two matters which warrant attention. The first is the notion that the making process in all visual art, the craft, is far from only a means to an end: craft inevitably adds intellectual, sensory and utilitarian ingredients to the making process which remain embodied in the finished artwork. The second is that the material object does not evaporate when the making is over - it too lingers as both testimony to the making and as an object for contemplation independent of the artist's intention and her/his claim for its dissolution. Art objects cannot be made without craft and craft cannot be deleted from the finished artwork.

Hence it is argued that if craft adds to and remains in visual art objects, it must also be available for contemplation independent of the artist's intention. If craft and the material object is available for contemplation independent of the artist's intention, why not works which communicate predominantly from the craft process and the craftsperson's intention.

To defend these contentions Actor-network theory (ANT) is engaged because it refutes the notion that craft processes can be eliminated or rendered insignificant in things which are made. In fact ANT seeks out and validates all the seemingly unconnected actors and their relations and connects them as a network. A network is a chain of indispensable actors which transform an idea into an object to become the network - the network is an entity, the network is craft.

ANT was influenced by an empirical strand of the philosophy, anthropology and sociology of science called Science and Technology Studies (Latour, 1993, p. 3). Although now widely used as a tool in many contexts, ANT was heavily influenced by the theorisation of a piece of pivotal ethnographic research by Latour and Woolgar (1986) in a science laboratory. As anthropologists/sociologists they studied the actors and their actions in the endocrinology laboratory at the Salk Institute. However ANT's claim to discover “real” science is hotly contested both from within the general field of Science and Technology Studies (mainly concerning the claim of equal status ascribed to humans and non-humans) and especially by the “hard” sciences, in fact, starting a flare up, the so-called “Science Wars” (Fuller, 1998).

Although many have added to its current form, Bruno Latour's contribution to ANT is the most profound. Latour is a philosopher/sociologist/anthropologist of science whose interest in Science and Technology Studies was central to the development of ANT. ANT was not only the result of the theorisation of his incursions into working laboratories but also of its application to historical sites where breakthrough science had been made (eg “Pasteur and His Lactic Acid Ferment” (2000)) and to sites of technological development such as Aramis (1999), the study of the development of a rapid transport system in France. In these sites Latour studied the process not from the evidence recorded as its history but what actually happened when the science and technology was being made: how it was crafted. He argued against the orthodoxy of the so-called rational scientific method and asserted that the craft of science had much more in common with other seemingly less rational human activities than scientists readily acknowledge.

Latour used language tools to mobilise his theories. For instance by replacing the word actor with actant he endowed all humans, events, actions, things, interactions, associations, ideas, etc with equal potential to impact on science and technology. He did this in order to disconnect the word actor from an exclusive association with human beings. He described the interaction of all the actants participating in the transformation of an idea into an object as a network, not in the usual sense of systems assembled to produce a result, but rather the reverse, where the pursuit of a particular result makes a network which is implicit in the result. He argued that if an actor-network is responsible for the relation between a hypothesis and a “fact”, it is far from sterile and unworthy of interest and examination.

His research was concerned with what scientists actually do when they test hypotheses and declare results in science experiments. In essence Latour claims that scientists “craft” an experiment using humans and non-humans as mediators and these mediators network an alliance of actants to produce science "facts". Latour (1986, p.29) asks us to step back from the results of science to look at how science was crafted when he wrote:

It is therefore necessary to retrieve some of the craft character of scientific activity through in situ observations of scientific practice. More specifically, it is necessary to show through empirical investigation how such craft practices are organised into a systematic and tidied research report.

Using the word craft in this context is provocative in science and out of favour in the visual arts . Although scientists and artists tend to ignore or deny craft's input in their fields Latour's theory when applied to science or the visual arts positions craft as an indispensable mediator for, and an embodied element in, the production of both science and visual art.

An example of craft as a mediator and embodied element from the craft (jewellery) workshop is the making of the pancake die. The pancake die is a simple tool which can be made and used in small workshops with the facilities at hand. It is a one-piece blanking die used for limited batch production. It is called a pancake or waffle die because its hinged action resembles that of a waffle iron. As an apparatus for batch production it requires a level of skill with a tool, the piercing saw and a machine, the fly press. These skills, tools and machines cannot be bypassed if a working die is to be made. The distinctive feature of the pancake die is its capacity to cut multiples. Multiples are a group of identical or similar objects understood as a unit of production in the workshop but as individual pieces for distribution as autonomous objects once they leave.

To expand on the efficacy of the pancake die as an example of the above notion of craft and the application of ANT, it is necessary to explain the die in terms of its principle and action by reducing it to a simple geometric diagram. The diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the central feature of the die, the principle of the shear. Although it is not necessary to understand the principle and use of the pancake die from this brief outline the intention is to illustrate with the diagram how unforgiving the shear principle is and what has to be understood and mastered by hand before jewellery objects can be made. The pancake die is an example of the materialisation of the argument for craft's indispensability in a branch of the visual arts, jewellery making.

Its essential precision is dependent on understanding the die principle from a diagram and the skill to cut it with a particular tool, the piercing saw. Without an understanding of the shear principle and the piercing saw skills to cut it, multiples of aesthetic and sensory interest cannot be produced.

Further in Figure 2, its efficacy as a die is also dependent on a mathematical relationship between the thickness of the metal used to make it (die thickness), the width of the saw cut (the saw blade size) and the thickness of the metal to be cut (blank thickness). Without this knowledge multiples of aesthetic and sensory interest cannot be produced . The relationship between these three variables will determine the critical angle of the saw cut necessary to make a working die and the level of skill necessary to hold the angle as an imperative for desired outcomes. Figure 2 illustrates a diagrammatic version of the technical knowledge which must be understood if a successful die is to be made. Thus the acquisition skill, tool use and technical knowledge are crucial for the ultimate efficacy of the die.

Both the shear diagram and the technical knowledge are examples of a geometrical and mathematical model underlying the function of the die. A non-functioning die disrupts the network of human and non-human actions and the production of techno/aesthetic objects for later contemplation. The products of a functioning die, jewellery objects of desire, are dependent on craft action and knowledge.

The principles and use of the pancake die can be further theorised in geometric terms as geometry is a macro mediator in the production of multiple jewellery objects of desire. The drawing illustrating the geometry of the shear principle (Figure 1) is a crucial point of departure as the efficacy of the die hinges on the determination of this simple geometrical principle. It not only determines how multiple identical blanks can be cut but also how its limitations, to a significant extent, shape both their functional and visual outcomes (that is, an understanding of the geometry is necessary for the production of jewellery objects of desire). The geometry not only determines outcomes but also process, tool selection, tool size, tool production, bench layout, seating position and skill development but also the working conditions of its maker and social aspirations of the viewer/wearer. Here we have an example of “laboratory” work significantly shaping an idea into an outcome, where the craft significantly determines “design” and quantity, the two most important outcomes of pancake die use. As the die takes shape as metal work the idiosyncratic intentions of the maker becomes infused with the geometry and mathematics of the die which remain as indispensable elements to the end.

The viewer/wearer of the finished objects does not need to know the die principles or have the technical knowledge but it is argued that their existence (the craft) will remain in the final appearance of each object. Craft is a source of contemplation and assessment which remains after the object gains autonomy outside the workshop to be further reformed by the market and idiosyncrasies of the viewer/wearer.

Craft, if argued as an indispensable element in science and the visual arts and exemplified in the example of the pancake die, is validated as a discrete entity available for contemplation in tandem with, or independent of other agendas.

Fuller, S. 1998, The Science Wars: Who Exactly is the Enemy [Online accessed, 26/05/2003 ] http;//members.tripod.com/~ScienceWars/japoo1.html

Latour, B. Woolgar, S. 1979, Laboratory Life, The Social Construction of Facts. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills London

Latour, B. 1993, We Have Never Been Modern. Longman , England

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