understanding craft

The crafts of India are diverse, rich in history, culture and religion. The craft of each state in India reflect the influence of different empires. Throughout centuries, crafts have been embedded as a culture and tradition within rural communities.

Handicraft - The act of ‘hand-crafting an object to suffice a daily chore; to pacify a need of faith; as an artistic expression; or perhaps to hone the dexterity of a pair of hands. This act of ‘crafting’ is but the most potent proof of the ‘civil-ness’ within any civilization. The ancient act of crafting almost always is a reflection of the times... and sometimes is powerful enough to make time itself its reflection.

Handicrafts have weathered many a storms at the hands of increased industrialization and overall paradigm shifts in the crafts’ production and consumption ecosystem. The global consumer now slowly wakes to the actual ecological price that the increasingly mechanized and plasticaddicted industries entail. They are more willing now than ever before to hear and pay heed to the tales of craft.

Although an interest to retain the culture of crafts is seen in designers and institutions. Handicrafts are the creative products made by the skill of the hand without the help of modern machinery and equipment. Nowadays, hand-made products are considered to be a fashion statement and an item of luxury.

India’s rich cultural heritage and centuries of evolutionary tradition is manifested by the huge variety of handicrafts made all over the country. Handicrafts are a mirror of the cultural identity of the ethnic people who make it.

Through the ages, handicrafts made in India like the Kashmiri woollen carpets, Zari embroidered fabrics, terracotta and ceramic products, silk fabrics etc. have maintained their exclusiveness. In the ancient times, these handicrafts were exported to far off countries of Europe, Africa, West Asia and Far East via the ‘silk route’. The entire wealth of timeless Indian handicrafts has survived through the ages. These crafts carry the magnetic appeal of the Indian culture that promises exclusivity, beauty, dignity and style.

Objects

”Now here is the challenge: In its long history, design practice has done a marvellous job of inventing the practical skills for drawing objects, from architectural drawing, mechanic blueprints, scale models, prototyping etc. But what has always been missing from those marvellous drawings (designs in the literal sense) are an impression of the controversies and the many contradicting stake holders that are born within with these. In other words, you in design as well as we in science and technology studies may insist that objects are always assemblies, “gatherings” in Heidegger’s meaning of the word, or things and Dinge, and yet, four hundred years after the invention of perspective drawing, three hundred years after projective geometry, fifty years after the development of CAD computer screens, we are still utterly unable to draw together, to simulate, to materialize, to approximate, to fully model to scale, what a thing in all of its complexity, is.” Bruno

Latour

… no one man could have possibly designed the lota. The number of combinations of factors to be considered gets to be astronomical – no one man designed the lota but many men over many generations. Many individuals represented in their own way through something they may have added or may have removed or through some quality of which they were particularly aware. The hope for, and the reason for such an institute as we describe, is that it will hasten the production of the ’lotas’ of our time. By this we mean a hope that an attitude be generated that will appraise and solve the problems of our coming times with the same tremendous service, dignity and love that the lota served its time.

Objectified is a feature-length documentary film examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the people who design them, in our daily lives. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit.

One of the most interesting things about tech teardowns is the voyeuristic joy of seeing how something so sleek and familiar on the outside is actually put together.

Technics SL-1200MK7 turntable

As significant to DJ culture as the Les Paul is to rock, Technics’ 7th generation SL-1200 turntable looks virtually unchanged since it was launched 40 years ago, but it does hide a few welcome upgrades. The aluminium die-cast chassis has a two-layer construction featuring a mix of ABS and glass fibre – boosting rigidity and damping vibration – while a completely re-engineered direct-drive motor has ditched the traditional iron core. This, apparently, has eliminated the root cause of “cogging” –stuttering during slow rotations, a major complaint about direct-drive decks. Technics has also included starting-torque and brake-speed adjustments, and, using its newfound ability to play in reverse, Boomers among us can finally hear the hidden message on The Beatles’ “Revolution #9”. It’s shown here with the stereo DJ cartridge Audio-Technica AT-XP7 (£149 audiotechnica.com), which has an extended stylus tip for instant positioning.