Take a look at these hands...

Abstract

This paper/presentation asks us to encounter directly our hands as makers, and to look deeply into the way in which they literally and physically embody tradition and practice. It argues that this embodiment, and hence our traditions, are in no way a simple set of patterns to be copied, but a set of creative possibilities opening onto the unknown.

Hand and tool co-evolve over time; much creative ‘thinking’ happens through the activity of the hands themselves. Conventional understanding of the hand as merely a kind of ‘super-tool’ executing the mind’s intentions is hence a fundamental error.

Unlike the machine, the work of the hand is always a process of repetition with difference. And the activity of the hands is as much a part of any ‘self’ as the conscious mind.

The distinction between hand-made and machine made can hence be differently understood. The accuracy and control of the machine represent one pole of making, embodying the fantasy of a total control by the rational mind, and the resulting objects as a form of expression of an idea and/or creative personality.

Allowing the hands (and, of course, the body as a whole) to play their role as carriers of tradition and possibility though their partnership with simple or sophisticated tools, is by contrast a more wholly human activity, and one which immediately situates the body in a complex set of cultural and historical relationships. These relationships are themselves concrete and not fully amenable to intellectual analysis.

This brings us back to the physical roots of enjoyment, and of happiness. Without appreciating the existence, complexity and significance of these relationships, which cut across issues such as identity, and locale, we close off that large field of meaning that is embodied rather than articulated, or even articulable.

How would a society which took these issues seriously conduct itself? How would it organise production and consumption? Any understanding of what a culturally sustainable society might be cannot afford to ignore this deeper significance of working with our hands, the parts of ‘ourselves’ this employs, and it’s role in the creation of meaning and happiness.

Conventional critical and theoretical analysis, even that produced by makers, has tended to underplay or ignore the centrality of this physical embodiment, unintentionally treating the body as a theoretical construct rather than an experienced living reality. The presentation/paper will address itself to the audience’s hands and bodies as much as their minds.