An interesting discussion has reared its welcoming head on Bogost’s site. It surrounds the issue brought up by Mark Nelson, of filtering or siphoning certain processes in relation to the sciences, the humanites and design, with design in particular as the labelled ‘third term-(Artificial)’ between nature (science) and culture (humanities). Some interesting Whitehead comments have been linked in also. I wanted to simply add three muddled comments really, (without clogging up other blogs), which I hope will aid discussion as the issues raised are significant in scope.

First point: The general nature of the discussion signals some instability between the ranks of the three sets, after all as Bogost mentions, engineering and craft seem to relate quite well to human experience. At first blush, one should mention Bernard Stiegler and the endorsement of technics as a third member of ‘Being’ between matter and human; or as he quotes it; ‘organised inorganic matter’. That said, whilst Stiegler argues profusely on the importance of technics and individuation, nature and culture aren’t established as separate realms (a distinction Latour would deny), but simply muddled by the presence of an altogether different distinction. By contrast, OOO removes the clutter and deals with units rather than abstract distinctions.

Second point: Like design, aesthetics is also, in many cases shoved in as a ‘third way bleeder’ between the sciences and the humanities, much more than it is argued I think. Tim Morton suggested that the terms given to artificial design could apply quite well to, and supersede aesthetics, whilst at the same time insinuating that the ‘arts’ haven’t exactly dealt with craft and design of late; no general arguments there (from me at least).

But take Leonardo magazine for instance, (I’m picking this not just because it’s affiliated with Plymouth), the three main distinctions we have here are quite different;

Leonardo creates opportunities for the powerful exchange of ideas between practitioners in art, science and technology.

The three main areas of focus seem here to focus on intersecting the arts between science (nature) and technology (artificial/design). In this case, (and I know from meeting others who regularly read the magazine), either, the ‘arts’ seem to be a catch all distinction which lumps the humanities in with it, or other aspects of the humanities aren’t included here, but referred to in the place of ‘art’. In this case, Leonardo prides itself on bleeding together ideas which encompass these three disciplines together. It also prides itself on a word I’ve been eternally suspicious off; namely, interdisciplinary. But I’d argue that in many cases the same distinctions still apply, but that they are all ‘third way bleeders’. Art brings to the fore, certain issues that emerge in the humanities or culture which operate as a negotiable third discipline between nature and technology. Maybe even ‘nature’ operates as the third way between technology and culture in some weird way.

Third Point: The discussion on aesthetics and crafts in particular, reminds of Charlie Gere’s recent endorsement of John Ruskin, William Morris’ Arts and Crafts Movement and historical experimentalism. As I’m sure most of the readers who work in digital arts know, Charlie Gere is a seminal arts historian undoubtedly, but I’d argue that his recent foray into Ruskinian aesthetics misses a golden opportunity to get back to the artistic objects themselves.

I’ve read numerous versions of Gere’s argument (there was even a paper which I missed at the AAH); however this account from a Lancaster Uni blog sums it up really well. Gere thinks Ruskin’s ideas on reactionary politics have a certain relevancy with today’s aesthetics and its political vicissitudes, particularly in comparison with Marx who wrote at the same time as Ruskin. His ideas are often associated with William Morris who attempted to apply Ruskin’s ideas to the well known British Arts and Crafts Movement. The movement is typically afforded with the stance of reviving experimental craft practice in reaction to the enslaving mechanical production of commodities. As this summary of ‘Ruskin’s Garden’ alludes;

“…Charlie Gere referred to Ruskin’s ‘experimental’ garden, describing gothic experimentalism as one based on craft not science. Gere outlined how Ruskin’s gothic builder, whose love of variety and for beauty for its own sake was evidence of his freedom, as compared to the ‘enslaved’ worker, endeavoring to produce regular perfection.”

Gere has argued that what typifies the digital arts scene away from the mainstream is the desire to experiment rather than reproduce. Today’s artists are in many ways, repeating Ruskin’s experimental craft practice by launching their projects into the social realm. Today’s conception of technology and mechanical reproduction isn’t an issue, purely because programmers, digital artists actually reveal the formal classification of ‘craft’ by exerting their freedom with social experimentation. He uses Derrida quite well here on the commitment of a decision when there is no clear way forward.

An additional interesting aspect that Gere highlighted, was that typical distinctions between art and science were never an issue in Ruskin’s time; he used a quote from Robert Hewison that;

“… in the late twentieth century we have become so used to thinking in terms of an absolute division between the arts and the sciences that it is difficult to imagine a time when their relationship was not one of mutual incomprehension and hostility. The division has been built into our education system and embedded in our culture. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century the relationship was far from antithetical. The harmony between art and science was easier to sustain because the scientific culture was in its methodology much closer to that of the painters and poets, in that it was principally one of observation and classification. The early nineteenth century scientist observed and recorded the phenomena of the natural world, like a painter, and like a poet, named them.”

There are many reasons as to why, art and science became divisible, but Gere thinks that Ruskin’s experimentalism should be endorsed into contemporary arts practice, in such a way that it provokes insight into the dehumanisation of industrial capital.

But, who, like me thinks that Gere might have missed the chance to actually focus on the materials themselves experimented on by the artist, scientist, and designer rather than some presumed emancipation from industrial capital? There isn’t any need for artists to rescue the dehumanised, in so much as humanisation is the main problem in the first place. Art need not fund ideas for the human, filtered through other practices but instead rejoice in the strange world of simple things. Following Bogost’s and Harman’s ideas on Carpentry, craft needs to be situated in the experimentation of things, the results of which come from their real execution.

This, in my mind, is what typifies craft; an experimentation with simple things, rather than experimentation for political ends. All Gere needs to do by the looks of it, is step back slightly and let artworks reveal the inner workings of things themselves.