I do think of myself as a maker. I
am not, however, special in this regard; all living creatures “make” in some
capacity or another. As I was
reminded when researching my papermaking sojourn, the wasp has been producing
paper nests for millions of years. (Mann) Humbling as that is, my experiments
with various recycled materials have given me a new appreciation for the vast
inventory of human learning that is a single sheet of paper. Along with this awareness comes new
understanding of my culture’s arguably dysfunctional romance with the consumption
of goods, how wide the chasm gapes between having and making, and how my chosen
role as maker can work to bridge the gap. In support of this, I will primarily
refer to Ann Thorpe’s Architecture and
Design versus Consumerism, and
Dr. Steven Mann’s online video Introduction
to Papermaking, unless otherwise noted.
The chasm I speak
of is the gulf of time between Ts’ai Lun’s first run with his bamboo screen
mold and deckle in 104 CE (Mann), and the more recent few Wednesdays ago when I
used mine. What I did was to
simply follow (or not follow) advice posted by experts and novices alike, and to
mimic motions played out in YouTube videos. Lun, by comparison, invented
production-based papermaking some 2000 years ago, and his insights and
technologies have remained largely unchanged to date. (Mann)
To my post-process
eyeballs, the absurdity of thousands of years of experience being held in
something as lowly and common as a gum wrapper has come into sharp focus. Also,
the fact that my knowledge of cellulose as the primary component of paper has
been virtually handed to me as a 21st century human without any
particular effort on my part, I must now consider the difference between what I
know from actual experience, and what I assume to know.
In light of my
newfound respect for paper, the amount of material I have thrown out with
little regard for its making is personally dismaying. I no longer see paper as
a passively inert problem cluttering up my garbage can and recycle bins. Rather, I see it as a kind of activated
enabler, a machine into and upon which I have recorded much of my collective
experience, supposition and whimsy, and which I have taken completely for
granted.
The online
Oxford dictionary’s technical definition of a machine is “any device that
transmits a force or directs its application”. A subtle distinction would be to say that a machine is
“any device that is used to transmit
a force or to direct its application”.
Paper falls under this definition if you consider force as a “thing
regarded as exerting power or influence”, especially when it comes in the form
of a book. The Roman scholar Aldus made it his life’s work to distribute more
evenly the power and influence controlled by what he called the “book buriers”.
(Barolini 30-31)
Too, if not somewhat obviously, a device
is described as “a contrivance or an invention serving a particular purpose”. In
this instance paper was contrived as a medium for data storage; not much
different in intent from today’s personal computers and iPhones. Granted, I
don’t think the average consumer would so casually toss one of today’s must-have
devices into the garbage or recycle bin like we do paper, and yet…
Our
“dysfunctional romance” with the idea that goods serve as a valuation of
personal worth is not unlike our relatively modern approach to “playing the
field”, or dating, as a form of recreation. Visible consumption of goods
functions as a sign to others of our acceptance of the values of the larger
society and our intent to belong to it; dating the most popular guy at school
makes one popular by association, and therefore one “belongs” and is also
considered desirable, and so on. “[N]ovelty (stimulation-as-reward) and anxiety (social
striving for position or belonging through goods) are two key factors that
drive consumerism”. (Thorpe 63) By this logic, if people were iPhones, I would have
already dumped versions 1.0 through 4.0 and would be currently enamored with
version 5.0; that is until 6.0 comes along. In this regard, we are quite fickle
as to how we go about satiating our needs.
I have been
aware of the concept of “peer pressure” since my first sex education class in
high school. From the educator’s point of view an informed teenager makes
better decisions regarding his or her sexual health and is more likely to avoid
such pit falls as unwanted pregnancy and disease. This infers that an
individual will act in their own best interests, as opposed to following the
crowd. Thorpe cites recent studies of social networks that contradict this
belief in the consumer. The researchers state that “subconsciously or
otherwise, we end up aping what our friends do and this mimicry is in turn
passed on to others in the chain, influencing people several degrees of
separation removed from ourselves” and go on to describe this as a “contagion
of behaviours” noting “undesirable behaviours… can be just as contagious as
desirable behaviours” (Thorpe 59)
Conversely, we seem to be quite logical
and rational in our desire to be perceived as socially valuable; Thorpe
discusses economist Peter Victor’s take on the tendency to associate goods and notions
of progress:
Over time, society’s focus moved
more closely towards economic progress based on market transactions. Not only
are market transactions easily quantifiable, but also economists argued that
markets are the most efficient way of distributing resources. Markets enable us
to convert the “value” or “utility” of a product or service into a monetary
price, then money offers a convenient, universal way for people to express
their preferences, needs and wants – through consumer purchases (Thorpe 39)
I find it
intriguing that we choose to validate our selves via the purchase of cheap commodities,
and find it equally frustrating that we resist making significant change in
favour of economic efficiencies; we seem to repeatedly privilege the external
over the internal. As Thorpe clearly states “the current societal narrative,
hung up on individualization – the individuals unwillingness to change or
sacrifice – traps us in a no-win situation”. (67) She does however point to the “possibility of collective citizen action across large scale
movements” as a possible antidote, and that the forces of “individualization, commoditization
and the increasing pace of immediate rewards” can instead “be read as a map of
where to target collective action, a map for agency”. (68)
I take her
words, and my newly realized role as a map maker of agency, to heart.
Works Cited
Barolini, Helen. Aldus and his Dream Book. New York:
Italica. 1992. Print. (Excerpt: 30-31.)
Handout. Emily
Carr University of Art and Design. Vancouver, BC. n.d.
Mann, Steven. Introduction to Papermaking – History of Papermaking. Video. July
14, 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioDEYljT2c4
June 15, 2014.
Thorpe, Ann. Architecture & Design versus Consumerism – How Design Activism
Confronts
Growth. Handout. Emily Carr University
of Art and Design. Vancouver, BC. n.d.
“device.”oxforddictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries. Web. June 16, 2014
“force.”oxforddictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries. Web. June 16, 2014
“machine.”oxforddictionaries.com. Oxford Dictionaries. Web. June 16, 2014
