Paper

Starting from an analysis on the phenomenology of contemporaneity, it has been identified as the home, if once it has always been the place to undress the social to think only of the primary functions (eating, sleeping, taking care of oneself), this is not enough anymore. Today the home, as well as the work environment, must be a multifaceted and dynamic entity capable of accommodating many, if not all, of the multiple identities that contemporaneity invites us or forces us to assume.

Following the pandemic situation, this dynamic has only increased exponentially. Now, we need objects and spaces capable of satisfying ever more different and ever more dynamic needs, but which nevertheless allow us to rebuild a sense of community and union, heavily damaged by the social distancing to which we have been forced to adapt. All of a sudden, we found ourselves prisoners of ourselves, of our homes: the neighbor, the relative, the friend were just a threat, people to watch from afar and to protect us from. As a result, the home has become our nest, our comfort zone, as well as our gym, office, beautician, and baker.
However, in my opinion, we must be careful not to get carried away completely by all this new frenzy that surrounds the domestic environment, because we could forget about ourselves and our well-being, overwhelmed by excessive architectural polymorphism. Trying to enhance this environment more and more, thus carrying the perspective of "you never know", to ensure that it can transport us to a thousand different places and dynamics while always staying in the same place, we could get to fill our homes with countless objects that perhaps have a function and fulfill an immediate need, but risk being aesthetically and above all emotionally empty, insignificant. Precisely for this reason, the aim of this text is to be able to investigate and understand how to promote material empathy through what is a journey to rediscover and re-evaluate the world of craftsmanship, also through what is an exhortation to use the local materials as much as possible. All of this will then be represented by virtuous examples created by European studios that can give a concrete image of this journey of re-evaluation.

The world of craftsmanship was chosen as the main and representative producer / creator of objects evocative of stories, meanings and emotions, because it is perhaps one of the few and still affected figures who profess the “philosophy of the imperfect”, a philosophy that sees those details world of industrial production considers “errors to be erased, defective”, given by a given irregularity of the material or generated by human hands or their imprint, as distinctive features of each single object.

Finally, the ultimate aim of this short essay is to demonstrate how technology is not the enemy of the craftsman but rather, if used wisely, it will be one of his new working tools and that, if tamed, will bring the craftsmanship at another level where technology and tradition will be seen cooperating harmoniously and in unison. However, this is also a very delicate step because, starting from the observation of the contemporary world, today with the growth of digitalization and technological innovation, we are increasingly losing contact with materiality, with the concrete, with the real, with the imperfect. We are forgetting the sensations we experience when, through the gesture of touching, we know and investigate an object, a surface, we are forgetting those unconscious and totally spontaneous and natural sensations and gestures that have allowed us to discover the world since birth, since we were children. Therefore, it is really necessary to be able to balance this step very well without making the craftsman become only a technical operator or that, conversely, technology becomes only a mere accelerator of phases and processes.

Modern society has transformed the chain that went from craftsmanship to work to the user into a chain that goes from the producer to the product to the consumer, thus emptying every object of any story, values and emotion, making them seem only superfluous, unnecessary elements. However, it is precisely those emotions that the object generates and that unconsciously act on us that make us perceive an environment as comfortable, safe, compared to a cold and aseptic one, dictated by an anonymous and storytelling-free furniture such as the one that is the result of an industrial production aimed solely at making numbers.

Matter itself is the bearer of concepts, stories and emotions which, when molded, do nothing but amplify these intrinsic values and then lead them to relate to other values deriving, for example, from form or from interaction with the environment. Just as the Italian sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti said, to decide on a shape you often have to let the material speak because, if you look at it well, it is already present within it, you just need to free it.

The materials has the ability to create and generate an emotional connection that is established in the user's memory, through the materials it is therefore possible to "wake up" the user from the mere digital world in which he currently lives, with the aim of making him rediscover the need to touch, to discover with one's own hands, to know and generate an empathic bond with an object, with an environment. In my opinion currently this power to "free" this empathy, these emotions present in the material, is possessed by the artisans, or all those "poets of doing" who not only and exclusively use machinery and software to design and produce products, but who they get their hands dirty, trying to know the material, its limits and, however, also trying to overcome them.
The figure of the craftsman is a very fascinating figure rich in history, solid technical skills and traditions, but who nevertheless immediately connects in our mind as something old, something that is no longer in step with the times, something that arises in contrast to technology. Unfortunately, in doing so, fewer and fewer young people become curious and want to learn this kind of crafts, thus leading them to disappearance, and perhaps without thinking about how they can exploit being children of the era of digital natives and integrate these knowledge with the history of own territory, with its own culture, thus generating an amplification of all the knowledge and values attached to a given cultural heritage intrinsic to these crafts.

Technology has always had an impact on our reality. Good or bad as it is or you want to consider it, it has made certain tasks easier to do, faster, at a lower cost. It made humanity evolve. In general, we could say, it has also changed society, for better or for worse.

The world of work was not exempt from this change and just as new professions and trades were born, others were lost. In a transformation that today is not globally homogeneous, of course, but which has common trends and traits in Western countries.

We could go back in time, only a few decades, to write about works such as the linotypist, who composed the lines to be melted in lead, and then send them to print, to the typography, to mention a specialized work, or the Venetian craftsman who he was involved in the construction of gondolas, or even the mammaluccaio, the one who creates plaster statues of various sizes, including the statuettes of our cribs or the corbellaio, builder of baskets and corbelli in chestnut wood.
Generally speaking, the least requested professions are those of the handicraft sector. Continuous technological innovations has opened new horizons for the young people of today's society, but they are creating difficulties in various fields.

A nation rich in history and art like Italy should not be subjected to the unique and all-encompassing influence of other cultures, but should have the task of safeguarding local workers and encouraging young people to resume the craft of craftsmanship. The furniture sector, for example, was upset in a short time. If in the past it was necessary to turn to a professional carpenter to make wooden furniture, today it is possible, and also it becomes easier, to go to a large distribution center for mass-produced furniture offered at affordable prices, but of much lower quality.

In Italy, from 2011 to 2016, over 116 thousand workshop were closed. More than 20 thousand in 2014 alone. We risk not seeing more barbers, framers, straw makers, blacksmiths. In 2016, about 21,780 shops closed in Italy, some of them even historic ones. And since 2009 the collapse has been 116 thousand units. A vertical fall, which starts from afar and is taking place in the indifference of the government and local administrations. The artisans close, without succession, because the rents, especially in the historic centers, are too high, as are the taxes and not to mention the fact that the bureaucratic pressure is oppressive and that above all nobody defends these shops.

The unbridled crisis of craftsmanship, which should instead be encouraged and developed through web platforms, is a sign of a piece of the economy that is dying. An economy that represents the genetic codes of made in Italy creativity, synonymous with quality and attention to detail. We recall that in the boom years, starting from small shops, excellent industrialists and companies were born, which later became world giants. Now, however, the path is the other way around: crafts are dying, and entrepreneurs, when they can, sell companies to foreigners, obviously always talking about Italy.

In my opinion, we are wasting a great opportunity for new, healthier and more balanced economic growth, and for giving new jobs to young people. Crafts collapsed, while it should be one of the drivers of the recovery and not the main subject that from "ordinary and common" is now considered as "extraordinary" or even "unique".

Fortunately, in the last period we are realizing this immense loss to which we are all contributing and, slowly, craftsmanship is perhaps really starting to experience what is a period of rebirth.

EXAMPLE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP RECOVERY

Bottega Intreccio it is an Italian story, a story of a territory that specializes in know-how, of peasant knowledge that turns into a business, of objects and traditions that are renewed through contemporary languages and an entrepreneurial approach guided by design.

Bottega Intreccio was born in 2014 in Mogliano, in the Marche region, but its origins can be traced in the hands of Giuseppe Maurizi, one of the oldest artisans. Thanks to him in the sixties the art of weaving, usually applied to baskets and bags, was used in garden furniture and accessories in rush and bamboo. Giuseppe and three other artisans (Alfredo Astolfi, Mauro Corradini, Tonino Nardi), founders of Carteca Scuola Intreccio in 2014, are responsible for the revival of interest in the technique, placing the new generations in close contact with expert craftsmen and bringing back to Mogliano a know-how that was being lost.

It is a widespread atelier in the area that makes use of the experience of local craft shops and synergies with neighboring production districts, such as that of the upholstered furniture of nearby Tolentino. And, thanks to the direct link with the School, it acts as a catalyst of knowledge and experimentation for the new weavers.

Since 2019, the Angeletti Ruzza studio has been handling the art direction of the brand with the aim of expressing the relevance of materials such as wicker, rattan and wicker in domestic interiors, as well as the poetry underlying this ancient art. With the involvement of designers with a recognizable stylistic code and a strong sensitivity for materials, such as Patricia Urquiola, they want to mix craftsmanship and design, poetry and concreteness. Bottega Intreccio debuts with an eclectic collection that expresses harmony precisely in the enhancement of an ancient material and a precious workmanship, made of detail and intelligence that comes from the hands.

EXAMPLE OF TERRITORIAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, AMONG ARTISAN MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

The Casa di Pietra is an exhibition project by the Gumdesign studio, launched in 2014 on the occasion of the Marmomac event at Fiera Verona and from which a collection of stone objects was born, made by expert craftsmen and sold online. The goal is to recover the primordial culture of home living, using stone as a symbolic starting point for this rediscovery.

Stone has always fascinated man and since ancient times it has attributed virtues, meanings and magical powers to it. The house represents the sense of personal ease and well-being with oneself and with the outside world, it means safety, protection and a point of reference since the ancient times of the caves. Caves inhabited by men who felt the need to "fill" their "homes" with signs and drawings of their life. To the meaning of safe refuge they soon added that of space where they could express what was most important to them, becoming expression, narration, mirror of affective, symbolic, community contents.

Furthermore, in 2020, during the first pandemic lockdown, the Casa di Pietra launched, on its Youtube channel, the Territorial Encyclopedia project: conversations with the artisans and companies of the Circuit, an opportunity for the masters to tell about themselves, their work and their passions, their history and sensitivity.

EXAMPLE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP AND TECHNOLOGY, THE COMBINATION OF THE FUTURE

Design Studio Unfold, is an Antwerp-based studio that develops projects that explores new ways of designing and manufacturing in a time when these become increasingly more digitized. One of the things I love most about this studio is how they managed to create a wise and totally new relationship between handcraft and technology, without however distorting the philosophy of craftsmanship and the beauty of the imperfection given by the hand when it comes to contact with the material.

Two of the projects that I consider exemplary of how artisan techniques can dialogue together with technology are L’artisan Eletronique and Brick Clay Carafe & Cups.

L’artisan Eletronique

This project is composed by a potter’s wheel where the material to be moulded consists of air. A virtual potter’s wheel. Visitors of the installation can mould the vacuum as they wish. Once they have completed their virtually shaped design, it is saved in a database. In addition, all of this is connected on another table in which a 3d printer transforms the virtual design into matter. Halfway alongside the table there is a display case in which the printed designs are laid to dry and displayed as artefacts of a new history.

L’artisan Eletronique is a very interesting project because broken the border between craftmanship and technology. A border that most of the people think that can never be deleted because are one the opposite of the other. It is really fascinating how the studio has instead introduced the hand and the concept of imperfection, one of the main concepts of the handcraft system, into the 3D printing system as well. In this specific way people are not passive and powerless in front of the machine, they can work together to design an object, but it is not just about the shape, it is also about its history. In addition, you can also use different materials and that can be also a link to introduce and to incorporate the concept of locality and the belonging to one's own territory and sustainability. Otherwise, you can also add different techniques, also the antique ones, that could allow the storytelling to become a historytelling, and it help and can allow to bring to light forgotten techniques that tell the story of a territory and its heritage.

This project show how probably could be the “healthy” relationship between human-machine in the future, in which people are not just droids in constant dependence on technology, but they work together to answer at the constantly growing costumers request but in a more thoughtful way, not just for create an object because of it is needed. And, in addition, I think also that this approach could be really helpful to contrast the globalization and homologation phenomena which is the main reasons of because of we are losing all of this.

Brick Clay Carafe & Cups

I think it is another project that is truly exemplary of how the relationship between artisan production and technology should be, that is to investigate traditional techniques and try to make them dialogue with the latter, while bringing innovation and tricks also given by experience.

This project, in fact, is composed by a cup and carafe made from a local clay that has been used in Belgium since the 13th century to make bricks. Unfold produced this tableware in the Bokrijk open-air museum on their ceramic printers which they developed and open sourced in 2009. With its thick coiled appearance, the design is an ode to the traditional technique of coiling, a technique at the very roots of ceramic 3D-printing. For this set Unfold developed new software methods to break loose of the traditional planar appearance of 3d printing where objects are build up from equally thick horizontal stacks of lines. In the cups, the spacing between the coils gradually increases, from 0.5 to 1mm. In the carafe, the plane of printing changes slowly multiple times during printing and the carafe ends with an angled spout.

POST DIGITAL ARTISAN, EXAMPLE OF A NEW ERA OF CRAFTMANSHIP

“Post-digital artisans. Craftsmanship with a new aesthetic in fashion, art, design and architecture” is a book, created by Jonathan Openshaw in 2015, which focuses on what a return to the gesture of touch, to tactility. This return has been achieved through contemporary artisans who create objects by combining handcrafting and technology. Obviously, as has already been said before, technology, the digital age, has indelibly changed the way we live, think and act, now we spend more time online than disconnected from the screen. However, our symbiotic relationship with digital does not negate the desire for a tactile and physically immersive experience, and this is also due to the fact that touch screens do not eliminate the need to touch something more palpable than an electronic visual display.

It is precisely in this context that today's "post-digital artisans" operate. Inevitably influenced by the digital world, they nevertheless reject screen-based design and total reliance on automated manufacturing, such as 3D printing. They advocate a return to craftsmanship, with objects made of clay, metal, glass and wood. They don't turn their backs on technology or glorify nostalgia, but their high-tech honeymoon is over. They see materials as the heart of art, fashion, architecture and design.

We live in a society that is increasingly frenetic and increasingly in need of objects, as well as living in the hope, however, that the latter will soon break to allow us to have a "clear conscience" and therefore to be able to buy new ones, to buy later models that yes, maybe they will also be more expensive, but certainly much more performing. But the question that arises spontaneously is whether we really need all these services or are they just elements that are aiming to make us become more and more lazy people and more and more detached from reality because now everything can be done online? And above all, why do we still feel the need to customize objects or even have them made to measure, despite the infinite range of products on the market?

Also bearing in mind that we are the first to remain fascinated and enchanted in front of handmade objects, despite the great perfection of those made industrially.
It is therefore evident that we desire, that we need something more, something deeper.

I conclude this text by stating that in my opinion we are slowly moving towards what is an awareness with regard to the pros and cons of the aggressive industrial production that characterizes our era and that has its roots in what is the industrial revolution and the theorization of the assembly line. Slowly we are becoming more and more aware of this sort of "alienation" that we are experiencing. In short, in my opinion it seems that there are all prerequisites to be able to start a new era of craftsmanship, the era of makers, figures who make products not only to make profit but who, through hybrid products made from the combination of attention to the environment, aiming to create quality products rich in history, culture, traditions, but above all in innovation and awareness for the protection of cultural heritage, values, but also for the protection and safeguarding of environment, the ultimate goal to which no artisan, designer, maker, architect can no longer avoid or not understand.