Making as knowing: epistemology and technique in craft
Lehmann, Ulrich (2012) Making as knowing: epistemology and technique in craft. The Journal of Modern Craft, 5 (2). pp. 149-164. ISSN 1749-6780 (Online)
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This essay inquires into the structural working processes for craft, in particular the connection between epistemology and practice. Craft studies have recently emerged as methodologically circumscribed areas of research into the decorative arts. The forum for publishing the present essay is the first peer-reviewed journal that focuses on these recent methodological departures. Yet abstract meditations on the specificity of craft remain underdeveloped. The essay therefore puts forward an explicitly philosophical exploration of craft – across the twin bases of investigating material techniques (textiles) and the structural exploration of epistemological notions like intuition. It programmatically uses the orthodox canon of philosophical discourses in order to inquire into the relationship between episteme and techne. Platonic and Aristotelian postulates are used to trace the origin and variation in understanding the connection between knowing and making. The metaphor of weaving – instrumental to many Platonic discourses – is employed as the 'thread' running through the discussion. This metaphor is also employed to guide the application of episteme and techne to textile production, in particular through a detailed structural analysis of the pleated fabrics used by Mariano Fortuny and Issey Miyake.
The application of abstract thought to design discourses like textile production or fashion that are perceived habitually as superficial and atheoretical often takes recourse to speculative and associative processes, frequently with the aid of secondary research sources only. In contrast, my work employs a detailed analysis of textual foundations as well as a concrete material inquiry into the production processes for the chosen textile examples. Beyond demonstrating the etymological connection between 'text' and 'textile', it proposes a structural reading of the production for the pleated textiles, offering a new approach to the fashion designs of Fortuny and Miyake, as well as others.
ISSN 1749-6772 (Print)
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