User:Nikki Vieler
Contents
About Nikki Vieler
Hi,
I am a 23 year old Product Design student, who loves making all kinds of stuff. Still trying to find a focus on what he exactly wants, but has started to control and learn to control that focus.
I also like to pose tricky questions, as they are the ones that I think we should answer. I don't think critical thinking is posing rhetorical questions that are easily and lazily answered, not that I am making any underlying comment with that statement.
Making is Connecting 2016: Van den Vos Reynaerde
Why do we view craft exclusively as a human activity?
This is my question for this project, one that I will follow up with a product that questions the notion of craft being exclusive to human beings.
I do not wish to change our idea of craft being a human thing, but I don't think it is wholly logical to consider craft a human thing. I wish to question this idea. After all, don't birds make nests, spider's weave webs, beavers build dams and ants create huge colonies? Is there no craft in this? Is craft something made purely by hand (in which case a monkey could be a craftsman)? This is the notion and definition that I am trying to contest in my work. I wish to explore the boundaries of craft by making a book that tells the old Epos called "Van den Vos Reynaerde". Through this I wish to question and hopefully push craft beyond it's conventional boundaries into new a understanding of making by hand.
Techniques assignment
Adhesive/Gluing/Lijmen Research
See PowerPoint presentation:
Adhesive/Gluing/Lijmen Work
I wanted to glue together pages I cut out of parchment with some rabbit
But things didn't work out...
First Draught Statement
File:Digital craft statement.pdf
Why I make I am a human being, I am what I make of myself, even if that is for better or for worse. I make because I can connect to myself and through connecting to myself, I can connect to others. One can philosophize about being made by oneself, but I just like to believe that I make myself and no one can steel or break that. The next step is to realise that I am not just the only person on the planet and that other people also try to make themselves. So this making is a shared experience. By seeing that, I realise that I also need to look beyond my own Idea of self-making. We all are making ourselves and we should share this. Therefor I make to share myself with others who make. I don’t believe in the facebook sharing, but in the genuine unregistered free sharing of ideas and attitudes.
We shouldn’t just share the things we make with ourselves, but we should place this in a context. Our context (as human beings) is nature (which evolves with time passing by) and this idea and practice of self-making should be placed in nature. We should not forget nature’s power, abundance and presence in our world. I will get back to this later.
I will make myself through art, craft, technology and thought. I pretend to be philosophical, but all I am really trying to do is to think a new way of getting me though the life that I am thrown into. This is a little confusing, but in the end it can make sense if no one trips me up at the end. I try to hold onto the ideas as much as I believe that I can hold onto myself and hold onto craft.
Craft has a rich history which to some extent has been preserved in books and literature. William Morris was a producer of books/owner of a books company and I loved it when I read that. I love books. My deepest interest lies within books that sometimes are beyond my attention span and before my time, but if it is in my hyperfocus, I can tear through it like a wolf tears through a little lamb. I love reading philosophical books (such as Being and Time, Being and Nothingness, In praise of Folly and Of Conduct of Understanding), but I also enjoy books that have some historical narrative (Van den Vos Reynaerde, Dam busters, Philosophy of History) to them. I also have a slight obsession with design books (that would be an understatement) and I love seeing any new design books and books of any new design. I also love a book that has been well designed (Irma Boom is one of my favourite designers).
I have a love of books and of the way they can connect us to people, ideas and history. I believe we quite often neglect books in preference of digital media and that this isn’t really a progressive attitude or approach to dealing with complex thoughts and social life. My belief is that we should go back to reading books (after all the bluelight on our screens is extremely detrimental to our melatonine levels in the brain), but that this should not be done in a regressive manner.
Books should be about finding tranquillity in the hectic modern daily life. Books should be about connecting ourselves to the past, without ignoring the present. I am no bible lover, nor am I a TV junkie, I just love books and what they connect us to. I am a human being who believes that literary progress can be done through digital media, without the destruction of the book itself and without the neglect of digital production.
Digital books are not really books. My idea of a book is of something tactile. A digital book miss the tactility of conventional books. This is a shame, as it disconnects us to the story being told, and the cohesive feeling we create with narratives. A book to touch is a book to connect with. I am not a fan of Amazon Kindle, Bol.com Kobo or any other digital platform for e-books. I do not neglect the possibilities that the offer. I am just adamant in my belief that books just can’t be wholly replaced by digital media and that digital media can contribute to the creation of new types of tactile books.
A way to creating new things and connections is fusing and bonding. This will be the productive narrative in my work. I will take 3d printing, heatpressing, embossing, gleuing and any other form of material fusion and bonding to make my own little book. The idea is that I will fuse digital creations, tech and love into a well crafted book. Something to treasure and love.
When I was a teenager at school, my teacher presented us with a story. A very old dutch fable, called Van den Vos Reynaerde. It is a vicious, yet inspiring story of a fox who criticizes and fools the animal kingdom for the folly in believing too strongly in their own making. This is something that seems lost in our time and I believe it needs to be brought back to the present day.
An old story in an old book can not be ignored any longer when it is remade...
