18: Rethinking Technology

Introduction to NSEKA 360

0:00Welcome to NSEKA 360, a podcast that amplifies and uplifts the voices of the ceramic community. I'm Edith Garcia for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. Visit nseka.net to learn more about how membership cultivates a clay community and shapes content and opportunities for the field. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for the latest information about NSEKA.

Panel Introduction

0:30Hey there, this is Adam Chow and I'm the exhibitions director for NSEKA. Today's episode of NSEKA 360 features a discussion on rethinking technology moderated by David Jones and featuring panelists Brie Murphy and Del Harrow. This conversation was recorded in person at the 2024 NSEKA Coalescence Conference in Richmond, Virginia. Special thanks to the Brickyard Network for co-producing this

1:01episode and supporting podcasting in the ceramics community. If you enjoy this podcast, please support NSEKA's programming by donating at nseka.net slash donate.

Importance of Discussion

1:11It's a wonderful honour to be invited to NSEKA to engage in this sort of debate because we recognise that it's incredibly important in terms of where we are at the moment in ceramic art and where we are in terms of ceramic education. So it's an absolutely fitting venue and site for such a discussion and I'm

1:45extremely honoured to have two wonderful panellists with me. So we will introduce ourselves separately and then we have prepared some questions perhaps for each other. There are certainly issues that all of us have brought up in prior discussions and that some of us have already been, have already initiated in discussions at NSEKA and some of us will carry on. So I'm talking tomorrow at exactly this

2:19time, the lunchtime slot and I do thank you all for foregoing your sandwiches to be here with us.

Debate Context

2:28But any of you who were lucky enough to catch Bree's discussion with Richard Notkin this morning will have a sense of where the debate is at the moment and it's this whole sense of what do we do with this new technology that people are picturing in a very fearful way but can also be an incredibly exciting tool that enables people who are perhaps unable to get into their studio, that perhaps enables

3:05people to develop a brand new tool that is just an extension of what they're doing and that helps us to move forward. But at the same time we must bear in mind what the consequences are that AI, artificial intelligence, the digital revolution has brought and the way that it may impact our field and the way that it is impacting our field.

Digital Technology in Ceramics

3:36So if, so we will just very quickly give a background to who we are and how that might actually inform the discussion that we're going to have here and then we will, Ben will give us a sign and we will give Lau about 15 minutes at the end for Q&A from the audience. So please be prepared to engage with us in that conversation with clear questions, not statements please,

4:10and the way that we might actually make our way forward through this debate. So if I ask, sorry, if I ask Del to start by just introducing yourself and making the audience aware of where you come from in this debate and your starting points. Thanks for the introduction. I'm good to see you

Del Harrow Introduction

4:31again, Bree. So my name is Del Harrow. I teach, I'm a professor of ceramics and art at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. I teach in the pottery area there with my wife, Sanam Amami. We are the pottery program at CSU. And I've been working with kind of a combination of digital technology along with traditional hand skill-based forming techniques in my work for at least 20, close to 25 years now. I'm

5:08since graduate school. My work with digital fabrication and ceramics really kind of grew beyond graduate school when I was working at Penn State University through a number of collaborations with architects. At that time, sort of early 2000s, I feel like the architecture world was really pushing digital fabrication techniques forward. And I learned a huge amount from folks in architecture at Penn State. Since then, I've taught digital fabrication really extensively for the last

5:44maybe 15 years, both through courses at Colorado State, and also through a lot of workshops at Penland School, Anderson Ranch Art Center. And often the workshops I've taught in those places have been about really kind of bringing ceramic artists, well, maybe doing two things, bringing ceramic artists, introducing ceramic artists to digital processes and digital tools. And then also at the same time, a lot of architecture and design students who are already familiar with digital technology were also

6:19taking those workshops. And so the workshop was serving the maybe parallel function of introducing folks who are already familiar with digital technology to ceramic techniques and processes. So that's kind of where I where I come from. So thank you very much, Del. I wonder, Brie, whether you'd like to sort of also frame your introduction in terms of the quest,

Brie Murphy Introduction

6:43some of the questions that you were raising this morning, and that you have in your mind about this discourse in here. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. So yeah, my name is Brie Murphy, and I currently teach sculpture and digital fabrication at the University of Northern Colorado. And I have been doing digital fabrication stuff, I guess, for the last 15 years or so, ever since I was an undergrad. And that for me started with using

7:15medical imaging technology and 3D imaging to create prototypes for slipcasting. And then eventually transitioned to using direct clay printing with printers that I build myself. And, yeah, I think, you know, Richard Nakan and I had a really great discussion this morning contrasting the sort of technological angst of, in ceramics, right, his experience in the 60s and 70s

7:48with slipcasting and how that feels very similar to a sort of maybe reluctance or hesitation around digital tools now. And I think, you know, some of the questions that I have around that, and maybe we'll dig into some of these ideas, are really centered around ideas of authorship. And, you know, I think that more than anything, it comes down to these things being tools and how, as both artists and

8:29educators, we want to implement those tools in our own practices and in our teaching. So I'm excited to chat more with the panel about it.

David Jones Background

8:39So thank you very much, Brie, for that. My background is very much in making and art education. And I'm particularly concerned with that relationship between what it is to hand make something and why that should be important, why in this day and age, there is any special place for that. And the discussion that Brie and Richard had had this morning was really very informative, because we go into what we've discussed, the three of us have

9:15discussed before, which is, in a sense, a false dichotomy between making something, articulating it with your fingertips, and making it using a prosthesis, like slipcasting, like artificial intelligence, digital printing. So the way that we might actually do that, so I've actually done very, very simple exercises, which can be totally bland and totally universalizable, like squeezing a piece of clay, and then transferring that

9:53into an object which is not, which is made by slipcasting, for instance. I mean, I would have done it by injection mold slipcasting if I had the facilities for it, so that it actually alienates us from that handmade site, and that it does something very different as a result of that. And one of the things that, and so, you know, that's, and I just want to sort of point out that if you click on the

10:24biographies in the NSECA site, you can find our websites, you can find our contact details, so we can carry on this conversation after the panel and after this podcast is finished. One of the things that came up this morning was what Richard Notkin referred to as the gloops and bloops of digital printing. I'm sure we're all aware of that.

10:54Brie talked about printing large objects, and it, you know, I kind of looked at them, I thought, well, she must have an extraordinary digital printer, because, ceramic printer, because you just have, you know, every five minutes you have to clean the nozzle. Every hour you have to, you know, it sort of breaks, and you have to, or you have to refill the reservoir. And, you know, she just sort of let out that she used to spend 24 hours looking after, babysitting this machine as it sort of pushes stuff

11:32out. And what happens is that when you're using digital printing, you get these strange effects, the breaks, the tears, the accidentals, the things that just happen. And that, you know, those of us who throw, those of us who hand make, those of us who use various sorts of printing techniques, know that there are ways in which the object takes on a life of its own through the process, so processual learning.

12:06And in, you know, I, for my sins, I did a PhD. And what we refer to these gloops and bloops with a rather tight technical term, which is indexical marks. They're the marks of making. It's the sorts of things that all of us, all of we potters really respond to. It's what happens when we throw something on the wheel and you get accidentals. It's what happens when we put something in a fuel burning kiln

12:43and you get fire flashing. You get the marks of where it's stacked in the firing. And I think that

Indexical Marks

12:52this is a really interesting area. And I don't know whether, Brie, you want to just sort of start to elaborate on where you were getting to with Richard in that discussion. Because I thought it was a really interesting point of, you know, how this digital, this extraordinary digital fabrication is actually quite like what we've always been doing, what we've always responded to. Well, yeah, I think, you know, in a sense, I mean, I think Jonathan Keepe talks about the clay 3D printer

13:28as, you know, being most analogous to coil building as opposed to slip casting, right? Because it's this sort of succession of layer after layer of coil. And I think we instinctively want to associate it with slip casting because that's kind of our most recent memory of the technology, right? The evolution of the technology or the industrialization of ceramics. But I like what you were saying, David, about the indexical marks. And I, you know, like I always think about those as residues of the process,

14:01right? And the visual language that is created by a clay 3D printer, for example, is so specific. And I think also, you know, another thing that, you know, that I think about a lot with the work is how it will be perceived in the future and how quickly it will kind of carry this dated aesthetic of being made in the like 2010s to 2020s. And I really like that about it, actually. I really like it

14:32being tethered to this really specific moment in history. And I think that as we're seeing digital tools continue to develop, I mean, year over year, there's so many new things to try.

14:46They become these like little timestamps in this way that I think, I mean, I find to be really exciting. Del, do you, do you have, do you have some thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really interesting conversation. I mean, I feel like there's sort of a few threads to this conversation. And I feel like, you know, David is kind of leading us towards it. But the one we're going down right now seems to have to do with questions around like the formal affects of digital technology. And this idea that digital technology may be in particular ways, digital tools in

15:21particular ways, I don't know, reveal qualities of material, reveal things to us about pattern and repetition, maybe how structures of certain kinds of technologies differ from others, how the hand differs from a CNC machine, and how the movements of those machines, the kind of the thinking, the intelligence embodied within them reveals itself through formal patterns that are evident in the in the physical artifacts, in the physical work, I think within the kind of gloop and bloop school, as David put it,

15:58you know, I think there's a really, I mean, there's an interesting thing there, right? That's a, it's a very ceramic idea. We all, you know, love the, you know, the sort of messy fecundity of the material. I think it's one of the things so much of, so many practitioners love about clay. One of the things I wonder a lot about is, you know, I think about things like Jenny Sorkin's critique of the Dirt on Delight show at the ICA, curated by Glenn Adamson back in

16:332001, and a kind of critique of that show as simply sort of reveling in messy formalism, I think is the way she described it. And so my kind of curiosity, or maybe question about this idea of the bloops and gloops within digital technology is, and maybe you got into this this morning, of how do we, or are we, developing maybe a more nuanced syntax for describing, thinking about, talking about the multitude of variations

17:08within those interactions between the maybe structured, orderly nature of digital technology, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, a kind of open question, pushing against or being resisted by the kind of messy fecundity of ceramic materials. I remember Mary Berenger asking a question at a talk I was giving about digital technology maybe 10, 15 years ago, where she was talking about this idea that in wood-fired ceramics in Japan, there's a whole language for describing different kinds of

17:45wood-fired effects and textures. That's the way we talk about, you know, Inuit languages, having all these words for snow. I don't, I don't know if that's real or just caricature or something, but this idea of sort of nuance in our language, we're confronted by the newness of certain marks, sort of fetishize them or revel in them, but then I wonder with digital technology, like how does our language and thinking develop for talking more specifically about kinds of gloops and bloops, like the endless

18:16variety of gloops and bloops in digital printing?

Language of Ceramics

18:20So one of the themes that's clearly emerging is this idea of the language of ceramics, of how as practitioners, all of us start to expand the limits that were set by a previous generation. And it's why cross-national discussions are very important, because we see that some of the things we're doing are very similar, but at other points, we can see that they're very different.

18:56And we can see that certain cultures evolve very, very sophisticated ways of dealing with the processes and the materials that they've got. So this idea of the Japanese stoneware tradition, the high-fire anagama tradition, where something very, very sophisticated comes out of very, very simple tools, is I suspect exactly what's going to be happening with digital technologies in the

19:31very near future. And that the way that, you know, another word of talking about it, I mean, what Brie and I were talking about last night was the prostheses. The different ways that what Marshall McLuhan calls, you know, the message, the medium of the way that this message is communicated, it changes and it evolves over time. So I just wonder whether we just need to talk a little, whether you want to talk a little bit more about this idea of the way that Marshall McLuhan

20:04is dealing, was dealing, was dealing with this notion that the way we communicate something absolutely changes the way that we understand it.

20:18Yeah, I mean, I think, well, a question, a question that I have when I think about McLuhan in relationship to what we're doing now is, uh, this idea of loss, right? Like when, when we gain something, we lose something else, right? And I think that that is a question that I have. I mean, are the stakes that high, really, that we are losing something? Because, you know, a lot of the anxiety that I perceive around digital technology in ceramics has to do with losing pottery or losing

20:55more traditional ways of making, right? So, um, is it actually a zero-sum situation though? I, I, I'm not convinced that it is because, you know, people are going to do the things that they're passionate about, right? Regardless of whether that's throwing on the wheel or, you know, um, using the laser or a 3D printer. And so I think, uh, I think I, I, I just, that's, uh, maybe my contribution into the, into, into this discussion is, are we really losing something here? Um, and maybe why is there

21:28that perception that, that we are where, where I, I really see it as an expansion? Maybe as a way of, I mean, I don't know, maybe as a way of kind of unpacking that a little bit, I, I wonder if I could, and I'll maybe touch on McLuhan. I mean, I think McLuhan, you know, it's, it's an interesting idea. This medium is the message idea. And I think part of the thought there is that normally in our thinking, the medium kind of sits in the background. We take it for granted, right? We assume that it's, the content is just about the content and that's separate, separatable. You can

22:00think about that separate from the material that it's made out of the medium, which it's transmitted through. So that notion, David, I feel like feels really relevant, apt here, because we're talking about the medium here. We're talking about the technology. We're talking about the material, the matter through which we, um, you know, I'm not even going to say communicate ideas because the medium is the message. Uh, but Brie, I don't know. I wonder if I could kind of push on this thought about angst or resistance within the ceramic field, where I kind of tossed a question back at

22:34you when we were talking before this panel, where I guess a few pieces maybe to this question. One is like, how can, how can we tell the difference between like angst, which might be a form of sort of leddism, xenophobia, fear of difference when we're talking about new technology? How can we sort of differentiate that from what might be interesting, generative, productive resistance or skepticism? And all, all of those, I actually think are really interesting, like interesting sites of debate,

23:08sites of conversation, places where we maybe actually push, um, and develop, um, sort of layers of thinking as we're engaging with new technology. So I don't know, can I throw that question back at you

Resistance to Digital Technology

23:23again? Yeah. Well, you know, I think, I think they're not mutually exclusive ideas either, but you know, I think that, you know, this, this idea of stretching, you know, I really, I feel like that is present, stretching, um, what we understand our perception of ceramics or art to be. And, and I agree with you that I think that that is healthy. And I think that the discourse is important, right? And without, I mean, the worst thing that, uh, you can do is ignore something and then that's, that's how we

23:55communicate, you know, that, that thing should go die, right? Is if we ignore it. But, um, I think the participating in a conversation about it is, uh, is, is part of it for sure. I think, um, in terms of just sort of defining the angst, I mean, they say don't read the comments, right? But, but that's, that happens and that's a reality. So that's, it becomes part of our lived experience. And I think as makers, we want to be validated in the things that we do. And so I think it can be tricky to balance this, uh, idea of, okay,

24:27well, I'm really passionate about this with, you know, a lot of people saying, you know, this is crap or you have sucked the soul out of ceramics, which are real comments, you know, that, that exist for people who, who are kind of trying to find this space between, um, you know, an ancient media and, um, new media. And, and so I think that, uh, I think it, yeah, it, it's, it's tricky, right? Because,

24:58um, you know, in the case of, uh, Richard Notkin, for example, like history proved him right, didn't it? Like that slipcasting was going to stick around and, and it, and it did, but we're kind of in that, we're in that phase of, okay, we have to persist in pushing these ideas and, um, believe that, you know, this is good and important work and, and continue on. So I think that there's sort of like a philosophical conversation alongside an emotional one, um, which is like that, uh, persistence to do your work. I'm so glad the word, the P word was introduced because of course,

25:34the philosophy of this is incredibly important. And it's curious to me that we're talking, we're using a lot of the counters that were used in my philosophy courses from 50 years ago, that we're talking about angst. I think Brie was using the word with a small a, but if you use it with a big A, you instantly get into the field of Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote an extraordinary, he's a Christian existentialist, and he wrote a book called Fear and Trembling. And this idea of

26:11angst is about how progress is made. And we find it in the Hegelian dialectic, which became the Marxist dialectic. This idea of a synthesis, an antithesis, sorry, a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis. The idea that without opposites, there is no progression, which is a quote from William Blake, the 18th century English poet. This idea that we constantly have to have oppositions to be making

26:44our way forward. And it's incredibly healthy. What's always peculiar to me, and it's something that Del brought up in our early discussions, is the way that something very revolutionary was introduced into the field. For instance, this idea that has already come up of Japanese wood fire ceramic, the mingei tradition. And it became a cult, it became a religion, and people became obsessed with, this is the only way to make pottery. This is the only way to do ceramics. And yet,

27:19what we want is to have this debate. The moment somebody says, this is the only way, this is, you know, it's a red rag to most of us, I hope. And that what we can see is that what we need is to somehow balance these opposites, and to make sense of the way that we can use both hand-making techniques, we can use both analog techniques and digital techniques, and we can start to say

27:50something about the human condition, which is where I come back to angst. And this way that the philosophy, the ideas that surround, the penumbra that surrounds this debate is incredibly important. We need to, as makers, as potters, as artists, we need to understand what it is that enables us to understand what we're doing. And if we don't ask those questions, and this is such a great, you know,

28:21venue for asking such questions, you know, this question that Richard Sennett poses, which is, why? You know, why are we doing it? What is it that we get out of this experience? What is it that we're trying to do? What is it we're trying to communicate that it becomes very, very central and very, very important? And maybe... Yeah, I mean, I'll pick up a couple threads and maybe toss some questions back at you. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think there are a bunch of really, really interesting questions in what you

28:54just spoke about. I mean, I think one thing, I don't know, I might kind of push against a little bit is the notion that the, and I don't know, this may be semantic, but that the end goal here is to tell us something about the human condition. And I'll just kind of take that up a little bit, because to me, one of the, I don't know, I think the compelling aspects of ceramics broadly, but also work with technology, is I think there are ways that it allows us to perhaps reflect on,

29:34unpack, create certain kinds of diffraction through the anthropocentrism of a lot of our, our thinking and orientation. I think for me, interest in technology has kind of maybe moved or morphed or expanded into interest in just material and materiality, you know, a sort of slow, kind of dawning realization that these distinctions we think about between the agency of the maker,

30:07the tools that we use or technologies, and then the materials that they are applied to are not a kind of hierarchical stacking, but are actually a really blurry, intertwined, interwoven, complex kind of system, complex of material configurations. So I guess within that, I guess the question I would ask that I think you sort of started to pose, you said, well, there's a, there's a kind of dialectic, there's an opposition, there's a duality in this, I don't know, digital clay

30:43or hand making. And, and I just wonder if we could talk a little bit more about what, what is, is there? Like, what is that duality you're, you're talking about? Maybe duality isn't the word you used, but I don't know. No, no, no, I think, I think Brie, you can answer my question and save me. Oh, okay. And then I, then I will.

31:06I don't know if there's a duality. I think, I think, you know, um, I think we deal in far too many binaries, right? Um, so, uh, so I think, yeah, I mean, I would, I, uh, I, I'm, I'm interested in this, uh, post-digital analog binary moment that Del has described. Um, it sounds, it sounds good. Uh, and, and I think, I think that that is, that is something that, again, goes back to what I was saying about it being a loss of something, right? Like one thing comes at the expense of another. And I think once you can

31:42kind of free yourself, right, from, from that feeling of, okay, well, if I do this, I'm not that anymore. And just, like you said, like revel in the different processes that are available. I mean, it's very liberating and, and, and exciting. And I think, uh, yeah, in, in, in other ways, and I, and this is like a little bit of a, an aside, but I also feel maybe an analog renaissance, like approaching, right? And I don't know if I'm, um, too optimistic about that, but, um, and maybe

32:17that's surprising to hear, but I mean, I really do love when it is collaborative or when it kind of flows in and out of, you know, dealing in, in more analog ways and more digital ways. And so, yeah, I, I, I, I, I say we resist the, the idea of one or the other. Can I, can I, can I, can I, sorry, or go ahead. Can I jump in? You can, you can jump in. That's my job as moderating. Okay, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, I can allow you, well, I'm, you know, please.

32:50You asked me a question earlier, so I thought maybe I could respond to it. Yeah, please, please. So, and I think actually the idea of the dialectic is incredibly rich and it just says that every time that we have this idea of the thesis, of stating something, there is an opposition and then we get a unification, then that becomes the thesis itself, that it's something that we then set

33:20up and that enables us to have, it's a circularity. It's not a linear progress, but there's this sense that we keep coming around. And in my talk tomorrow, in this dead lunchtime slot that they've carefully kindly given me, one of the ideas that I deal with was taken from a Ghanaian author, Parks. And he talks about a concept of Sankofa. And this is that something that you bring with you from the past

33:57in order to get you to the future. But it's always a problem because, you know, and it's like playing a video game, that you pick something up in the game, you pick something up in life, and if you pick it up, it leads to problems in the future. If you leave it behind, it may lead to problems in the future. There are no winning places that you can come to with this. But this idea of Sankofa strikes me as

34:29really rather fun because it's from an utterly other culture. It's a very ancient word from a very small language group in the west of Ghana. And it tells the story that I really wanted to tell. But this idea that you can have a body of work that just talks about materiality, that just talks about the substance that we use, and that just talks about the technology that was used to produce

35:07it, is incredibly interesting. But only because it tells us something else about what it is to be human. I just think that that's what abstract expressionism did. That's what modernism does. It tells us, it tries to tell the story and ask the questions in a new way. And that's why we have that reaction to modernism, which is post-modernism, where you have a complete flattening out and an evening of things. And now we're moving back towards this, you know, as Bree says, towards perhaps

35:43towards a much greater emphasis, again, on analog techniques and the place of the hand within this. So, I mean, within that analogy, like, can you, I'm wondering, like, what's the thing that we're picking up or not? Is that kind of a moving notion of the technological or the new? I mean, you kind of took us back to different points in in the history of ceramics, where, you know, maybe slip casting and the use of molds was the new, the new thing, that inflection point, that sort of point of crisis.

36:21At this moment, like, I don't know, what are we talking about? Like, in concrete terms, are we talking about using computer-controlled machines? Are we talking about artificial intelligence? Are we talking about the use of, like, just microchips and microprocessors, like, affecting the production of clay objects? What, I don't know, what are we talking about? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think, all of it, right? I guess, Del, do you mean, like, right now in this moment? Or, like, what do you mean?

37:03Yeah, like, what's this turning point we're talking about, or this difference, or this dialectic? Like, what's on the one side and the other side? And, yeah, specifically, like, I mean, you talked about issues of sort of authorship in the hand, and that kind of brings me to ideas, oh, maybe it's about, like, 3D printing and a tool kind of taking the manipulation out of the clay, like, away from or removing it from that immediacy of the, which David also spoke about earlier, is that what we're talking about?

37:35Are we talking about a whole bunch of things? Like, I'm just wondering if we could kind of... So, okay, so yesterday I had the wonderful good fortune to meet Brie as she was waiting to register. And as two people who might be interested in that sort of thing do, instead of, you know, asking, you know, where are you going for dinner tonight, we started to discuss about a Benjamin, because that's the sort of boy I am. And it was just this idea of the uniqueness of the art object that he was talking about.

38:10So, in the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, what he's talking about is the incredible crisis that was caused in fine art painting, particularly of portraiture, that happened at the turn of the last century. And he talks about this idea of aura, of this special quality. And, of course, you know, all through, you know, and then I went, you know, I've talked with a lot of people here about spirit, about the soul of the object.

38:44You know, these are metaphors for what it is that is special about these things that we make. And I suspect that many more of us than will put our hands up to admit wanting to talk about soul or spirit or aura actually think, you know what, I am blessed with being able to do something very unusual, very special with what I'm doing. And at a certain level, everything that I make is unique.

39:14At another level, a lot of the work that I do is incredibly generic. I make another piece that is a bit similar. What we saw this morning of Bree's presentation she made, you know, there's a digital print of a founding father of the United States. It's a bit like the next digital print of the founding father of the United States, yet they're subtly different. What is it that, you know, it's what makes that difference.

39:45So I think, you know, Walter Benjamin should be our last introduction before we open up to the floor.

39:52Or Andy Warhol. Can Andy Warhol be our last? Andy Warhol can come in. Later. Sorry, Bree, do you want to? Sure, yeah. Well, I think, I mean, it's so interesting. I mean, talking, you know, we spoke about the aura or the soul of the object. I mean, in the context, again, how do we relate this back to the topic at hand, rethinking technology, right? With that being so removed and away from the origins of that text.

40:24But how does it apply to our situation now? And, yeah, I go back to this. I know I've talked about this already, but this feeling of, oh, yeah, the progress that we're making technologically means that we've lost something. And, yeah, I push back on that for sure. But, I don't know, I'm interested to hear Del's thoughts, and then maybe I'll have another thing to say.

40:57I mean, yeah, and there's this multiplicity of technology, right? I mean, technology is maybe broadly it's about sort of control, kinds of control and regulation of matter and movement. I think it's about vectors of force, you know? I think the idea that there's violence interwoven with that. I mean, just thinking about how much of the, you know, the digital technology we use, the technologies we use, for all sorts of purposes in our culture, how much innovation is actually interwoven with the histories of war and warfare.

41:37And that's not, again, that's not to, I think that's actually a reason for engaging with digital technology within the ceramics field. I think, I don't know, I'm kind of, I guess, as interested in that idea as maybe these questions about resistance or pushback within the field. of actually, like, what does ceramics offer, I think, what does your work with digital technology offer to the larger culture

42:11and questions around technology because of our unique sensibility and disposition, sensitivity to material and materiality, sensitivity to the complexity of these questions. So, well, I think we should, at this point, start to close up our discussion amongst ourselves and open up to the floor.

Q&A Session

42:35It's quite evident from what Del's just been saying that if we actually get this right, we'll be able to stop the wars. And I find that a very, very positive note and a very positive idea that we might go forward with. But, you know, there are too many philosophers who saw war as this idea of the dialectic. You know, that this is one of the great growth areas that with war you can get new things beginning. I mean, I'm an evolutionist.

43:06I just think we develop things and we move them along as gradually as we possibly can without killing anybody. And I think we have a question. Just to take up on the direction that that was going and David saying he's an evolutionist. I've always been a great believer in hybrid vigor. And I think that, as Del said, there are so many aspects of AI that are in our lives already.

43:39In fact, all of you have alluded to that. And it's not stoppable. In some respects, if you try and keep the practice in which we're all engaged, you know, which is the ceramic world, if you try and keep it isolated and pure, you are destined to have it die in the same way that species die out if they become isolated and they don't change so that they adapt to, you know, the current environment.

44:11So I would take a kind of an evolutionary view of it. And I think that that, I mean, there is always competition in evolution, which is war. But I think that it's not dire and I think it's inevitable. And I think we'll look back on this at some stage and we'll think, what a weird thing to be arguing about, that we actually believed it could be one or the other that was the right path. Yeah.

44:41Anyway, I just think that you just touched on something then that spoke to my heart. Does somebody want to ask a question about? Can I say something about that really quick, Janet? I mean, I love this, like going into kind of the analogy or maybe it's not even an analogy. Maybe it's the reality of our field as a kind of, it's a kind of ecosystem. And this idea of evolutionary biology and ideas of sort of biodiversity within our field. And I think it gets back maybe to Bree's question about sort of audience resistance,

45:15like places within the fields where, like, how do we allow for the evolution of diversity and unique kinds of organisms? When does that happen through allowing for, like, the Fab Lab to exist as its own thing, right? And then when does it happen from this cross-pollination or cross-population? When do we bring these conversations together to invigorate and generate new kinds of conversations and new weird hybrids? Yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's exactly what happened here at NSEKA.

45:47And I think it's a testament to maybe this, our evolution as a field, right, is that the Fab Lab was introduced in 2016 in Kansas City. It was supposed to be a three-year thing, but here we are, right? We're still doing it, even though that initial little funding ran out, right? But we still have it because it has become embedded. And, you know, more and more is just part of, you know, and it's part of the main call now for programming. So it has, it started to function as less it's this, oh,

46:20and here's the weird stepchild over here kind of doing the robot stuff to, you know, multiple presentations, panels, and demos that involved digital fabrication now. And that's, you know, not even a decade ago. So we're witnessing it happen. We invited me to do something for the Fab Lab a couple years ago. Sorry, we've got another question from the film. Steve. I'm going to rewind this and ask a question that, David, you,

46:54when you were explaining what your concept was here and what the basis is for this whole conversation, I've always been, since my student days, 55 years ago as an undergraduate, I've always been devoted and very, very interested in the concept of hand-madeness. So my question to all three of you is make a case for the hand-madeness in mold work,

47:27in 3D printing, in digital technology, in making objects. Well, it's there because you make the mold. We explained this morning how her hands... No, I'm not doubting that you, that we all understand it, but there are people, not necessarily in this room, but maybe, that don't quite get why we can refer to digital technology in art as hand-madeness.

48:00As an extension to the hand. Well, I mean, I think that we're all, I mean, I question the question because we're putting a real premium on something that feels very romantic, right? Like it's made by hand. But I think we have to question what that actually means, right? And if, I don't know, there are so many examples of artwork that's not made by the hand that involves even other parts of the body.

48:31Are we going to deprioritize, you know, performance art because it's not the hand? I don't know. I just think, I think that the question is really pointing to a really narrow way of thinking about art. And so, to that question, I would just ask that person, whoever they may be, to reconsider what they are actually asking, right? And to the point we made earlier about any tool being an extension of the body, I mean, you know, you can't pick and choose. So, I think, yeah, that's what I have to say.

49:04I mean, David Pye unpacks this in a really sophisticated way in the nature and art of workmanship. And I think, yeah, I mean, to Brie's point, I think it's a false dichotomy, like that things are handmade or not, right? Most things exist somewhere on a continuum, which is interesting, actually. And actually, maybe makes your question, makes that question, I don't know. All of it, I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot in it. I actually sort of like the question, too.

49:34Maybe they're not handmade, and maybe that's bad. That's kind of interesting. We could start there. I mean, I would just sort of try to wrap this bit by saying that the handmade is the shorthand for saying something is authentic. This handmade object, and this takes us back to Walter Benjamin, I think particularly, this idea that, you know, we want something special. We do not, you know, and Del just, you know, he just threw in, he just said, well, what about Andy Warhol?

50:08You know, what happens, what happens when we consider the fountain by Marcel Duchamp? What happens when you think about this thing that is just brought, it's appropriated art, and now we understand how it has enabled us to see the world differently? We have another question. Yeah, you know, I look at all these tools, and I look at all this discussion of history, and I look at the discussion of what's being handmade, and I'm thinking, as an artist, who cares?

50:44It's just a means to how you want to get done. It could be 3D printed because you can't make it by hand. It could be done by hand because you want that feeling. You can actually mix the two. There's no one policing you saying you can't, but I think it's really interesting because I think this whole idea and this concept of technology is liberating us as artists to move forward, to think of new things, to do new things. We're not stuck in an old, historic, dying medium.

51:16This is a new, invigorated medium, and this is what's going to bring a lot of attention to this space. And not everything's going to pan out. You still have to be smart, intelligent, creative. You have to think, and you have to have a point of view. And I think sometimes the thoughts behind it are more important than the method of how you arrived at the finish. You know, when I do my illustration work, it's about the sketch.

51:46The final illustration is just an execution of that sketch. And I think with pottery and clay, it's really about your intent and your idea and your communication. You want to get out to other people. So I say, why can't it be a hybrid, and why can't we just continue learning through technology? I mean, I think that's a great point, Bruce. And I think, I mean, I think I'm just sort of looking around and practitioners within this room also. I mean, Bree's work, the work Linda's doing.

52:17I think so many people working with 3D printing right now, for example. I mean, I think there is a question, right, about the soul of the work, about the authenticity, about the handmade. But I think a lot of that comes back to, as you say, Bruce, like, how an artist is using something as a tool, which feels fresh and enlivening and generative. And I think there was, I don't know, there are phases in the adoption of technology. And I think, you know, maybe there was a, I don't know, I think the technology and our use of it is continuing to evolve.

52:49But I think there's something really exciting happening right now that has been happening with folks like y'all in this room who are making these tools, which could be sort of at a distance, could be kind of uptight, could have that sort of rigidity or distance, and making them into these fresh, complex, human, hand, machine, digital, material, kind of hybrid devices, whatever they are, extensions of the hand, organs.

53:24I mean, well, and it's the world we're living in right now, right? And as artists, we are contending with culture and then producing culture, right? We are taking in our world and synthesizing it in our own way and then outputting something for other people to look at and think about. So our existence in a digital world, I mean, how can we not be making work that engages with it? And I mean that in the sense that how are there not some people doing that? Not everybody has to do that, right? I'm not demanding everyone goes and gets a 3D printer.

53:54But, I mean, these are the big kind of existential questions of our time, especially with AI and things like that, right? So we have a responsibility to at least be thinking about it. And then the other thing I just want to say about this too is, you know, in terms of thinking about the field of ceramics and, okay, maybe in any given cohort, one or two, you might have one or two less potters or hand builders because they're interested in doing the digital fabrication stuff.

54:25And so, but I want to counter that notion of like a moving away from the tradition because, you know, the street works both ways between ceramics and maker culture, right? There's a lot of people coming into ceramics because we are collaborating or we're being collaborative. And so people who start with a little desktop plastic 3D printer find out, oh, wait, there's ceramic applications? I've never done ceramics. Maybe this is my entry point into the medium. And so the table's just getting bigger and bigger.

54:57We're not losing anyone. So you can see that this discussion is just starting, that there's lots of people who want to participate in the discourse and that, unfortunately, we have to start wrapping it up. I just want to mention one of the areas in which we didn't touch on at all, which is the idea of the ethics of AI and the ownership of what is being made through mid-journey

55:28and how our work exists on the internet, how our work doesn't exist on the internet, and how it is being manipulated or could be manipulated and be reprocessed and resold by somebody else. It can be stolen. You know, what of it do we own ourselves? If I scrape generic images off one of these big sites, can I just appropriate that? Is it just like a Duchampion moment or is it doing something very, very different?

56:01And so I think it's time for me to thank my two wonderful colleagues and participants in this discussion for raising a lot of very, very interesting questions and that we thank you very much for attending this podcast panel discussion. So thank you very much indeed for coming. Thank you.

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