John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

described – the tools that you are using change the nature of what you are
doing. I think I would agree that Lionel’s use of the tool is something a bit
further and your intention is then shaped by the use. They are tools but the
nature of what you are doing is shaped by your choice in the use of that tool.
Robb Mitchell: I wanted to ask, this is mainly for the potter – is it Tavs?
Tavs Jørgensen: Yes.
Robb Mitchell: When you are developing these techniques how focused are
you on thinking about the particular piece that you are going to make that day
or that week, using this new technique or how much are you thinking I’m going
to develop a technique and then other people might use my technique and then
go on to make more things? And if it is the second, then how much effort do you
put into or what is the best way to share these techniques? Is there a YouTube
for computer aided ceramics?
Tavs Jørgensen: Well I do a lot of talks and presentations and I tend to be
very open with the methods. They are incredibly simple – the methods – I
could get my four year old daughter to move the MicroScribe® around and do
that. That is also part of the attraction of new technologies that you do share – I
think that is important. That is the way that research and knowledge works –
you are standing on shoulders. In research departments you do get points and
funding according to how much you disseminate that research. You learn a lot
by sharing information. I do think you have to make the process available but I
do enjoy these pieces I don’t mind making excuses for making things that are
beautiful.
Julian Malins: How important is it that at some point or other (perhaps as
undergraduates) that you learned skills as makers – I see it as a bit of a paradox
going on between the need to learn about materials and that sort of thing and at
the same time these technologies really allowing you to do things without ever
touching material. But it seems to me that you all have strong sensitivity to
volume and form and everything else which must have come I think from
actually handling materials at some point or other. So you still need those kind
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