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Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
spaceraser@alpha.polymaths.social ("Sam D") wrote:
There's a thought that I'm having a difficult time teasing out at 5:30 in the morning, but it's been with me for a little bit. I don't know that a lot of people have room, in their conception of computing and tech, for the legitimacy of what my brain is calling aesthetic taste, or doing something for the artistic merit it has. Let me try to explain with examples.
I follow a couple of open source hardware projects that are very active right now, the @mntmn Reform series of computers and the Tangara music player from @jacqueline and co. Both are boutique, small batch electronics, made by people who seem to be driven mostly by the desire to see something exist in the world. It would be nice if something like this caught on and they sold a couple million open source laptops, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation from these teams. There is appreciation coming from the public, but there's also a lot of criticism focused on the price of small batch, hand assembled electronics ($250 for an mp3 player? My sansa clip was $3 on ebay and it does the same thing!) or on the "impracticalities" of the design decisions made by the team. My phone can do what this thing does, it's not practical to carry around a music player. My ThinkPad is cheaper and does more work, and is half the size. This chonky boi laptop isn't practical.
There just seems to be a blindness to the importance of, and the validity of, the power of an emotional response to a piece of consumer electronics, the same way a piece of fine art might move you. We can accept that a painting is valuable, primarily, as an object that elicits a human response, that requires a human element for the "thing" to "work" at all. An oil painting isn't practical. It requires care and a bit of maintenance and a big wall to hang it on and who has the time? It's just a picture. There's a guy out there making custom one-off computers using techniques from fine furniture making, trying to imagine and create a world where this semi-magical piece of human ingenuity, the product of countless hours of labor, care and creativity, isn't consigned to the e-waste pile after a couple years. Tech people are baffled. How are you going to upgrade it? Why use wood, it's not as thermally efficient as aluminum. It's not practical.
The instinct to tear something down, just because it's primary merit is artistic expression, isn't present in other disciplines. When someone shows up to a dinner party in a nice outfit, and the wearer shares that they made it themselves at home because they couldn't buy something exactly the way they wanted, people are impressed at the effort and might ask more about the construction. If they share that they're trying to buy less clothing because the waste in textiles and fashion is ATROCIOUS, SIMPLY A MONSTROUS ATROCITY BY ANY MEASURE, people may admit that they don't share that conviction that strongly, but good for you. Or maybe they'll say "well that's well and good but you aren't as good a sewist as the person from *checks tag* Bangladesh that constructed my outfit so keep trying." What you don't hear from the majority of people, right off the bat, is that you're dumb for spending all that time making your own or paying a sewist to custom make it for you because you could have bought something to cover yourself for $20 at walmart.
So I guess I just want to validate the emotional response to a piece of computing hardware as a good enough reason, on it's own. The joy of ownership of a device that not only fits your taste but also has a story and a particularity. Something with stickers and spray paint and dents and wood scrollwork and a CRT monitor. Because you like it. Because it's yours, and it's made the way you want it, and it's made for you to use.
I'll conclude with a similar thought I read in a book about building and renovating kitchens. The author spent a lot of time in the introduction opposing the HGTV-ication of the entire conversation of a kitchen renovation. How much do we spend, how much did the value of our home rise? What finishes and fixtures do we use, which do we avoid? We don't want to negatively impact the value of our home, we don't want to put custom cabinetry in because we'll never get the money out of it that we put in to it. What if they don't like teal paint, they may not pay as much for the house. Completely left out of this conversation is how much you will enjoy using the kitchen in the intervening time between you renovating this kitchen and you selling this house! You're the one who spent the money, you should enjoy using the kitchen!
You should enjoy using your stuff. If you'd enjoy it more if it was spray painted neon green, then break out the rattlecan. Make it yours. Even it it's less practical.