Material Innovations

“A piece of furniture, tableware or the like, made at a much earlier period than the present.”

Another definition:

Antique: a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its considerable age.

Wikipedia says, “objects at least 100 years old.” Considerable age is then at least 100 years old.

Thats fine.  I can accept that definition based on time, but this definition has little to do with the authenticity of an object.  A basis which can be seen as misleading in the antique world.  If time, and time alone, defines an object as antique, how does origin or more specifically, provenance, factor into this discussion?

Authentic: of undisputed origin; genuine.

Origin: the beginning of something’s existence.

Provenance: referring to the specific place, or sometimes the race or people, from which something is derived or by whom it was invented or constructed.

If location and process are truer definitions of authenticity, then the porcelain wares of Jingdezhen, China could be recognized as the finest examples of the authentic object, regardless of the time they have been created.

Jingdezhen, a province of Jiangxi China, as it’s slogan signs state, the “Harmonious Porcelain Metropolis”, has been a provenance of fine porcelain pottery for over 2000 years.  This is due to one of it’s major industrial mining materials kaolinite.  A mineral that is used mostly in porcelain manufacturing.  The name kaolinite - later kaolin, is derived from Chinese: Gaoling or Kao-ling (“High Hill”) which is in the city of Jingdezhen.

As a process, forcing the petrification of clay into stone to make ceramic pots, the porcelain artisans of Jingdezhen, also pioneered high-fire kiln techniques.  Firing a kiln at a higher temperature, reveals the beautiful qualities intrinsic to porcelain such as translucency, referring to them as objects of purity.

If the age of a pot is the only defining aspect of an objects value, then what does that say about the actual material and labor that makes a pot?  As these two things are based in physical reality, don’t they read as more viable conditions of what an object really is?  Could not skill, something learned that has been passed down from generation to generation, be a more viable quality of which to measure authenticity in terms of age?  Traditional skill, as exercised and recorded in the making of a certain type of object – as something taught and studied, is the quintessential definition of developed time, is it not?

Contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, an artist who, as he states, is not a ceramicist, but rather, does ceramics, challenges this notion of authenticity in his art works.  His porcelain work, some of which are high-end purposefully made counterfeits of Ming and Qing dynasty blue-and-white pottery, are made and created in Jingdezhen folowing a tradition that has been established for centuries.  What defines them as counterfeits is the fact that they are made in the present.

Ai Weiwei creates and fires in Jingdezhen at a ceramic studio he has dubbed Lao Wei Tang, run by a gentleman also called Weiwei.  Liu Weiwei, or as Ai refers to him, “Old Wei”, runs a kiln that makes only two types of work.  Ai’s ceramic work and counterfeits of Ming and Qing pottery for sale at auction houses in Beijing.  According to Philip Tanari in his essay about Ai Weiwei’s ceramic work, Postures in Clay: The Vessels of Ai Weiwei, “the only reason the entire art of traditional Chinese ceramics has been kept alive is the healthy market that exists for counterfeit replicas of classical works.”

Here in lies the problem of authenticity of the porcelain wares made in current Jingdezhen China.  There is a need of sustaining a particular culture that is met by continuing the manufacture of objects that defined China’s past identity.  As objects, these contemporary porcelain pots are deemed fake as they are not made in the time frame which defined the particular culture and society of China’s past.  What is being held onto by the outside world, is what the object symbolizes.  A cultural identity that transcends time, as formalized though the beauty of the porcelain pot, is still being considered, created, and cherished with each contemporary replica skillfully produced in the city of Jingdezhen.

Ai Weiwei, Blue-and-White Moonflask, 1996; replica in style of Qing dynasty, Qianlong reign era (1736–95); porcelain, glaze and cobalt brushwork, 20 7/8" x 14 1/2" x 3". Courtesy private collection, USA. Photo by: Jake Stangel

After viewing the Design for the First World competition guidelines I am immediately struck by the relevancy of their concerns for sustainability and over-consumption to the concerns that we address in our own program. To put myself in the shoes of the qualifying designers, I would look at this as an examination of my own and my fellow first worlder’s use and exploitation of developing economies to be their production work horses. Connected to one of my earlier posts, I feel that the U.S. (to use my locale) has over the past 50 years developed a relationship with China, specifically on having them produce (as we are all well aware) astonishing quantities of products and goods for our always growing practices of consumerism and consumption of goods.

Yeah, so, we all get that. WE USE TOO MUCH SHIT. But what do we do about it?

Well, this week has been a surprising series of revelations and connections made for myself, after conceiving my own thesis statement to revolve around some of these exact issues. Not so much addressing that we use too much, but that we as makers are losing our own connection to the things we own and in turn make for others. We’re on a poor cycle of designing and making our goods based on the examples set by a larger industry, and are catering to an audience that is craving and demanding objects in the manner that their consumption habits have shaped them into craving. We need to step back for a minute and take a breath. A stunning outline of how to do this came in the form of our class based video by Bruce Sterling and his addressing of our objects and services and their structure in our lives. Sterling’s view is essentially a call to purge. Which as much as I feel is possibly the only solution to reset, is not the only answer. Looking at the site http://www.kk.org/streetuse/, we see stunning examples of ingenuity and practicality in design making, even though the end results are less than beautiful as an aesthetic value, there is something about their simplicity and intuitive nature that presents beauty to us in a new way. Objects can be fun, and superfluous, but we’ve got to make them count as well.

My thoughts stemming from these sources and my (as of this week brand new) thinking about the products in our lives leads me to my design for the first world proposal. I propose that you make your own stuff. Plain and simple. Before you buy it, you try and make it. If you REALLY can’t succeed in making something to fill the functional role of what you were about to buy, then go ahead and buy a nice one. But give making a try. Let me make it for you. Let my fellow makers make it for you. Give up on the box store, and examine the skills of your community and fellow non-factory working human beings to be downright ingenious about how to solve your product problems. Also, don’t throw away every damn thing that breaks (here is where I begin to disagree with Mr. Sterling). I feel that this would result in a much greater appreciation of our stuff, and our natural relationship to it. By increasing these connections and raising this awareness, I feel that the trend towards reducing consumptive habits will begin to change, at least on a small scale.

I received a birthday card from my Aunt today, so I called her to express my gratitude.  Auntie Annie was a flower child in the sixtes and grew up hanging out with Ken Kesey, Frank Zappa and Jerry Garcia.  She once went to Eugene court in defense of love as an ingredient in bread (they won the case).   During our conversation I asked her opinion on the difference between our current socio-environmental movement and her activist experiences during sixties and seventies.  I often wonder if our present social and environmental concern will be overshadowed like the  energy crisis that proceeded the excessive eighties?  Will we return to our Hummer marketing, clear-cutting past like relapsing alcoholics?  I asked my Aunt what seems different about todays movement.  She said today there is so much science to back the movement that we won’t be dismissed as a bunch of stoners.

Annie and her old crew come to mind when I look through the “Whole Earth Catalog”.  I find it interesting that the author initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the satellite photo of the earth as seen from space.  Stewart Brand was a visionary, realizing the effect this image would have on our society and using it on the cover of his 1969 catalog.  Earth photographed from space was the most powerful tool for educating people about the necessity for environmental conservation.  People were able to visualize our planet as a singular interconnected environment with no “away” where we can throw things.  This is even more clear today as we realize coal burning in China melts glaciers in Greenland which floods fishing villages in Indonesia.

Speaking of glaciers…

Thank you Ali for passing me the “Whole Earth Catalog” open to a page discussing climbing techniques.  On the adjacent page I saw a summary of the first edition of “The Freedom of the Hills”.  I own the 6th edition of the mountaineering bible, and consulted it for glacial travel techniques that morning.  Coincidentally I had just e-mailed my parents as a safety precaution for a Saturday climb:

Hey guys I’m headed to climb the north east route up Colchuck Peak.  It’s 18 pitches of 5.8.  Carl Kilmt and I are leaving today around 2pm we will most likely park a blue subaru at Stuart lake/Mountaineer creek trail head, (10 miles outside of Leavenworth) hike to colchuck lake and bivvy.  Saturday we will climb and should be back to the car late that night or maybe Sunday mid day.

It’s not too technical. Leavenworth ranger station 509-548-6977.

Will try to call Sunday night or Monday morning.

-David

The next evening Carl and I would be descending two thousand feet on forty degree glacier in the dark using techniques explained in that book.  Although it may exist with in a fringe group, “The Freedom of the Hills” continues to be by far the most comprehensive publication on mountaineering techniques and safety.