DSDN 171 blog assignment 5

Walter Benjamin makes a sound argument that the role of the authentic has become lost in our modern age of industrious and mechanical reproduction. In today's society unique designs has become a rarity with most product being mass produced, whereas historically the Greeks could only produce 'Bronzes, terra cottas, and coins' to a scale. As the reading (Illuminations by Walter Benjamin) explains 'The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical - and, of course, not only technical - reproducibility.' Which is a counter argument that the original will always be definable as the authentic despite ones best efforts to reproduce it, this is because copies lack 'presence in time and space' or the 'aura' of the authentic.
It isn't just modern designs created for the purpose of reproducibility. 'Man made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for defusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in pursuit of gain.' However, today's technology has made more things possible as seen with the advancement in optic technology such as photography and x-ray, meaning we can see more than what we used to. This is seen in the series of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge which showed the movement of a racehorse and put a rest to the argument as to whether race horses really became completely airborne at any one moment as it was indefinable to the naked eye.
Now reproducing designs had become quicker and easier, this had caused the 'aura' of designs to become lost with the authenticity. But 'By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.' So sometimes copying other art can become more than simple duplicates and can lead to new unique arts themselves. So therefore I will neither agree or disagree that reproducibility has become so common that the authentic is now lost, this is untrue. We must accept that design has and always will be reproduced but the authentic will always hold the 'aura' which the copies fail to.

DSDN 171 blog assignment 4

When we hear the word craft we tend to think of a tired old craftsman standing over a well built wooden chair over which he laboured for hours, as seen in the lecture in the Von der werkbund austellung drawing. But craft has evolved from its origins in the late 19th/early 20th century to the contemporary craft of today.

The exact definition of craft was heavily debated in our tutorial, some beleived it could be defined by the times taken or the skill level required to construct a design. We debated whether a knitted scarf could be considered craft, as many people can knit and a scarf is a common object. But I believe it is craft, while many know how to knit, the quality of the scarf depends on the skill of the craftsmen so two are never the same. This is what seperates it from the mass produced/industrially mase designs that William Morris and A.W.N Pugin disliked.

It is on this basis that I chose my example of contemporary craft, flax art. It is craft because it is easy to do yet requires skill to craft well, time consuming and original. I believe it can be considered contemporary craft because of the modern obsession with sustainability and cultural design, rather than the technology and materials used, these may be a define some contemporary design but not craft.

Kate Westerink

http://virtualbay.co.nz/teawhirito/kimwesterink/index.htm