In a short BBC News Magazine video called Head to Head: Potter Versus 3D Printer a traditional potter discusses why he believes that pottery is more important than 3D printing while a jeweller defends the use of 3D aided design and using 3D printers. But is this really a battle that needs to be fought?
In the video London Potters Association chair Geoff Kenward and 3D printed jewelry brand Electrobloom designer Mark Bloomfield are asked if 3D printing should be thought of as a new type of art or if it even should be considered a craft. You can watch the video here:
Truthfully, I find the type of framing of this video rather patronizing. I’m always rather baffled by the desire for people to automatically assume that old things need to be replaced with new ones. Does anyone really believe that 3D printing is going to replace traditional methods of producing artwork? Are there actually any legitimate reasons that 3D printing would replace hand-made pottery?
Granted, pottery is an artistic pursuit that has more practical applications than painting, but when people buy ceramic jugs are they doing so because they need a pitcher for their Kool-Aid or are they doing it because they want a beautiful hand-made object? And should we really be suggesting that artwork made with 3D aided design and 3D printers is somehow less artistic simply because it can be replicated with a robot?
Whenever a new technology arrives there is always a backlash of some sort, and it often includes people who cling to things that are traditional. I’m sure that most of that motivation is purely because their traditions are deeply personal and important to them and they fear that they will be lost to history. I understand that motivation, and I share the fear that as we inch further into a rather spectacular future at an exponentially accelerated pace we may forget wonderful things that enrich us culturally. But new manufacturing methods like injection molding hasn’t destroyed the art of pottery, in fact it has elevated it to the level of an actual art and not just a manufacturing method.
Yes, we make less pottery, but how practical was mass-produced pottery anyway? And do the people who were, and in many places of the world still are, conscripted to produce pottery consider what they do art? The suggestion that the old ways – the traditional ways – of producing goods are somehow more valid and preferable to newer methods is a rather unpleasant first world perspective born of privilege.
Of course people from wealthy nations with an abundance of disposable income can afford to ascribe inflated value to the labor of others. I have little doubt that Mr. Kenward really does have the hair on the back of his neck raise when he thinks about how he’s making jugs in the same way that they did thousands of years ago. That’s a very poetic way to look at something that he loves doing and I respect his love of that tradition. But does the factory worker in a developing nation get the same feeling as she tries to make as many jugs as she can in an hour so she can afford to feed her family?
The jewelry that Mr Bloomfield creates is art. It is just as valid an artform as the pottery created by Mr. Kenward. The tools that each use are simply tools, and both require a human mind driven by the desire to create to work them. Comparing pottery to 3D printing is about as useful as comparing pottery to cooking fine French food. Thankfully the short video doesn’t dig very deep into the debate, which is probably for the best considering that it was such a shallow one.
