Slow Practices/Processes

Slow processes and what Slow means to me:  A partially finished series of ideas

In my opinion Slow is a thought process or philosophy rather than a time reference – just because a task takes a long time does not mean it is a Slow task.  I feel that Slow can be defined as taking appropriate time compared to our perceived normal 21st century way of living (seen as Fast).  A Slow process to me is one that has been well considered and thus decided upon due to its appropriateness.  This consideration may only need to be undertaken once as the resulting information could be held in mind for future projects, or it may be that the thinking needs to be done every time a process is used.  Slow and working in a Slow manner is about appropriateness, in terms of material choices, process choices and intended outcomes of your processes; in this sense Slow relates to time because, by working within a Slow framework one allows oneself the time to consider the available options, regardless of the scale of operation.

I feel that the following things should be considered as part of a Slow working process:
What is the intended outcome of the process?
What is the intended outcome for the series of processes, what are you intending to make?
What impact does the process have environmentally, both small and large scale, and if negative, how could this be reduced?
Also post-consumer use and recycling of the end product.

This should lead to a list of ‘needs’ for the outcome, which should help determine which process is most appropriate.  I believe that Slow relates to processes in a decision making format – why use that process?  Is it the most appropriate for the intended outcome of the process?
 I feel that one does not need to be personally involved in the process itself to consider it and its implications, also I feel that processes can be considered on an industrial scale.  One does not need to be an individual designer maker to work within a Slow framework/context, nor does one need to be a professional designer.
Personally when deciding upon a process I use my STEER theory, developed to offer a framework for Slow design.  I take a few moments to consider what I need it to do (STOP), I then consider whether it will do that to the standard I need it to, be that finished perfection or experimental designing stages (THINK), I then might ask around or look online to see if there is any other way of doing it – is there a way better environmentally or more appropriate aesthetically (EXPLORE).  I then go ahead with the process I have decided upon and involve myself in my making process (ENJOY).  I will at some point look over what I have done and how I did it in order to establish if I was happy with it, practically, environmentally and aesthetically and how I would do it if I were to repeat that process (RETHINK).  Part of working Slowly is being willing to rethink, revisit ideas to rework them.  Particularly as someone who is concerned about the environmental impact of my work I find the ‘re-‘ stages of my work very interesting, and often they offer a lot to learn from.

THOUGHTS:

‘The moral significance of work that grapples with material things may lie in the simple fact that such things lie outside the self’ (Crawford, M; Shop Classs as Soulcraft; 2009; p16)

 ‘…severing of the cognitive aspects of manual work from its physical execution’
(Crawford, M; Shop Class as Soulcraft; Penguin 2009; p31) – I think Slow can help reconnect the two.

‘As to the hope of the product, I have said that Nature compels us to work for that.  It remains for us  to look to it that we do  really produce something an not nothing…’ (Morris, W; Useful Work Versus Useless Toil; Penguin 2008; p3)

 ‘We shall not, therefore, be concerning ourselves with objects as defined by their functions or by the categories into which they might be subdivided for analytic purposes, but instead with the processes whereby people relate to them and with the systems of human behaviour and relationships that result therefrom.’ (Baudrillard, J; The System of Objects; Verso 2005; p2)

slow quote

"A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life."

http://www.slowfood.org.uk/Cms/Page/our-mission

Is Slow an outdated word, no.2

Is Slow an outmoded word in Design terms?  More musings on this topic here, brought about after reading about the origin, meaning and implications of words, also after watching Helvetica and wondering about the implications of text and graphics.  What imagery does Slow bring to mind? 

When the word Slow is used in design terms it instantly brings to mind slowness, timescales and lengthy jobs (ie tedium and ennui).  In this world of go go go thinking, instant information and high-speed living would this philosophy benefit from a more appropriate name?  Using my Slow theory to discuss this goes as follows:

Stop Think Explore Enjoy Rethink

STOP:  What does Slow instantly bring to mind?
THINK: What do I want Slow to mean?
EXPLORE: what other words (if any) are more appropriate?
ENJOY: Are any of them totally appropriate?  If not can I word-play with them?  Can I make a neologism?
RETHINK:  Will this word be appropriate in a weeks time?  A years time?  etc


First blog post on this thought here

Slow as an outdated word

Is Slow as a word misleading or outdated?  How up to date are words to do with sustainability ?  is there a comfort or familiarity with words such as green and does that lessen their impact?  These are questions I will be looking at further.  One of the many things that has got me thinking about these words, their true meanings and their implications is this quote:
'I ... prefer to use the term "trade" over "craft" to emphasize the prosaic nature of my subject (though I won't observe this distinction rigorously) '      p5-6 Shop Class as Soulcraft; An inquiry into the value of work, Matthew B. Crawford

Also a conversation had in the TED office about the greenwashing of green terms.

Critical Mass

Friday night saw London cyclists gathering and going for a slow cycle ride round the city. I caught up with Critical Mass when they were in the banking district and joined them for a couple of miles.  As I have an interest in Slow living and thinking I particularly enjoy this free-for-all slow ride.  With no leaders and no direction the mass rolls its own direction, with the occasional splinter group breaking off.

When the mass reaches a junction some riders will cork it, blocking the oncoming traffic for the mass to pass.  I find the reaction of motorists very interesting - some turn off their engines, sit back and enjoy the spectacle of hundreds of cyclists pottering past them and some get very irate, shouting, getting out of their cars and sometimes trying to drive through the mass.  This kind of aggression feels odd to me as generally the mass will pass in under 10 minutes and to me 10 minutes does not seems like a critical amount of time to 'lose'.  However sat in the comfort of a vehicle a sense of (unnecessary?) urgency or disempowerment (as the motor vehicle is normally king of the road) seems to overcome some of the corked drivers and they become angry.

Within Slow principles is the thought of enjoying time to sit back and relax, and this unexpected moment of enforced stillness appears to me to be the perfect opportunity for those motorists to take a surprise break from their day.  Slow Food UK says "May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency."  I think this little break from everyday motoring qualifies as a sensual pleasure, both for the driver who waits and watches and for the cyclist who can enjoy the ride in comparative safety and good company.

A postcard of my Slow Theory

It's a hard life in the fast lane...

Cats are, in many ways, the pinnacle of Slow living!

Hand sanding

This weekend I will be sanding by hand 8 of 31 maple tiles for a new flooring idea.  I enjoy the process of sanding wood by hand as it allows the mind time to work through other ideas and thoughts, whilst physically working towards a beautiful finished piece.  While mechanical sanding is a lot quicker and very useful for shaping and precision lines etc I have not been able to get the organic shapes I want only with a machine.  I also love the connection that the hand work offers me.  As someone who loves the sensory stimulation gained by touching and feeling materials, the tactility of handwork like this offers immense satisfaction.  I like the way my hands and arms feel tired after this work and the occasional blisters!  I feel that it also offers me a small insight into the times when machines weren't so readily available, if at all for this kind of work and for the effort that went into producing a fine finish on old furnitures etc.

The tiles in the picture are maple, although they are not the tiles I will be working on this weekend.

Baudrillard and Time

"The measuring of time produces anxiety when it serves to assign us to social tasks, but makes us feel safe when it substantializes time and cuts it into slices like an object of consumption."
p23, The System of Objects, Baudrillard

The Craftsman - Richard Sennett

I have been reading The Craftsman by Richard Sennett.  It has given me a lot of food for thought so far.  Some questions that is has raised in my mind are as follows:
By enforcing design practice within ones work, does one lose the skill needed to be a craftsperson, and does that matter - is it the job of the designer to design and then to pass the work to the appropriate craftsperson for making?  Is it possible to be a good designer and a skilled craftsperson.
Is design inherent in being a good craftsperson - does creating well made and beautiful objects automatically mean they are designed well?
Do objects need to be well made or is it more about appropriateness?
Sennett says "ethical behaviour was implicated in his technical work" (speaking about the craftsman, p64) and later "craft names a more anonymous, collective and continued practice" (p66).  I believe he means truth about materials & skill levels and quality/qualities of result by ethical behaviour, and the anonymous, collective behaviour is the shared studio or skills set passed between craftsperson and apprentice or interested learner. 
To link this in to some of my thoughts about Slow Design -
I believe that technical skill is gained through enduring practice, practice takes time and thus time should be allowed for this.
Practice toward skill can and should be consolidated by repetition and revisitation, where appropriate.
Advice from  and discourse with others is key to advancing ones skills in any field.

More thoughts to come...

One man...

Unus homo cunctando rem servavit

Or

One man, by hesitating, saved the republic.

More Morris

"So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die." -William Morris.

Food for thought.

William Morris House

I went to William Morris House today and enjoyed it greatly. Located in Walthamstow, NE London it is the house which Morris moved to as a boy with his mother and siblings after his fathers death. the exhibition is a chronological journey through his life - work, politics and relationships. It also has some beautiful Arts and Crafts furniture and paintings by Frank Brangwyn. Coming up in October is a Thomas Wardle textile exhibition.

I feel the Arts and Crafts movement was the first vocaliser of the need for Slow design, or at least slowness, I also think the tenet of having beautiful, meaningful things for functional purposes was very important ("Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful" - William Morris) and is something we could think more about now. The ability to think through purchases and our wants to decipher what they really are appears to have left us.

Looking at Baudrillard's work has left me thinking this: We have lost the ability to think clearly about the Functional Value (its actual purpose), Exchange Value (how much it costs) and even, to an extent, the Symbolic Value (what it means to us emotionally, and what it means to us in relation to another item) and left us only with the Sign Value (status value) of our purchases and lifestyles. There is a certain amount of emotion involved with status, but it is of a different sort to traditional symbolism in my opinion. We buy so fast it leaves us we no time to become involved with what we own, and we are busy keeping up with the trends, fashions adverts, upgrades and latest releases that newness becomes the imperative. Designers follow this same path to keep and and indeed create this newness, thus dismissing the need to think, engage and involve ourselves with what we make in order to keep on schedule and in doing so we create a vicious circle of unloved designs becoming unloved purchases, replaced quickly with new unloved purchases made from unloved designs.

Slowness by Kundera

I have been reading Slowness by Milan Kundera. Page34 says "Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time" which led me to ask - when did we get so disgusted by that which we have just created so as to need to vacate its presence so fast?



To quote William Morris; "...looking backwards to the time when history first began, we note that the progress of that victory [over nature in terms of living how we want] has been far swifter and more startling within the last two hundred years than ever before. Surely, therefore, we moderns ought to be in all ways vastly better off than any who have gone before us. Surely we ought, one and all of us, to be wealthy, to be well furnished with the good things which our victory over nature has won for us." He goes on to ask "who will dare deny that the great mass of civilised men are poor?" (both p10, Useful Work Versus Useless Toil)



Morris considers that people are poor when they suffer from a lack of quality in their life - it is not a monetary poorness that he speaks of. Similarly Kundera speaks of those moments when we move faster to escape things we wish to forget, to look at this from a consumer perspective you could say that with every upgrade, every new toy, every cheap piece of clothing bought on a whim is a sign of a poor quality of life and a wish to forget this by moving on from the last hasty purchase as fast as we possibly can on to the newest, latest distraction. From a design perspective this is a sad state - we, as designers, perpetuate this swiftness, this lack of quality with every piece of design brought out with the wrong kind of care behind it. When we care only to make something for the money or to beat a competitor we bring the bad qualities of design to life, where as well thought out design, - design meant to improve not only the manufacturers bank balance or the market share of the company but also the quality of life of the consumer and the use of products previously owned - well thought out design improves everything for everyone by not attempting to obliterate past memories or move us to throw 'away' the old in favour of the new (let us remember that there is no actual 'away', it is exists only as out of sight(Braungart, McDonough)), it exists to improve the quality of our time and enjoyment, to make fond memories of that which you own and form emotional attachments with your belongs, thus prolong their lives and again negating the need to move on and run away so fast.

Useful work?

I have also been reading Useful Work Versus Useless Toil by William Morris and he makes the point '...it is waste of time to try to express in words due contempt of the productions of the much-praised cheapness of our epoch. It must be enough to say that this cheapness is necessary to the system of exploiting on which modern manufacture rests. In other words, our society includes a great mass of slaves, who must be fed, clothed, housed and amused as slaves, and that their daily necessity compels them to make the slave-wares whose use is the perpetuation of their slavery.' (Morris, 1888/2008, UK)

Although this was written a long time ago it bears much relevance now - we work to earn money to consume, often while we work we produce items to be consumed or do that which oils the wheel of consumerism.
So the question remains - is this a habit which can be broken, and indeed do we want to break it? In my opinion it seems we do not want to wholly change our habits in consumerism thus we should change our design habits to lessen the impact of our day to day lives. Maybe taking on another of Morris' points would help - '... worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. All other work but this is worthess; it is slaves' work - mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.'