This blog provides a forum for students, instructors and others to share information and ideas about the Spring Thesis Program at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.
Hi Samta, First, I am very pleased with the new direction your thesis project is taking; although I am somewhat alarmed at the lateness of this shift, I think you are beginning to explore very provacative and difficult questions, and I applaud your efforts to get to the bottom of very vexing problems that seem to lie at the heart of some alienating and soul-crushing features of life today.
I agree with you that craft activity, due to the slowness and repetitious nature of making things by hand, encourages a deeper sense of engagement with the physical world. The loss of craft traditions is an outcome of economic realities: as mass production methods have proliferated throughout the world, individual craftsmen cannot compete, and they end up dying off, and these traditions are lost. I don't think that traditional ways of doing things are automatically better, and I believe that we must resist the trap of nostalgia in thinking about old ways of doing things.
I really like your ideas about games. I was surprised to learn that snakes and ladders actually comes from India. I created a version of snakes and ladders that you may find interesting. link
This version of the game allows blind kids to play the game using the Talking Tactile Tablet.
It sounds like you plan to explore your interest in preserving craft traditions in India by developing a game or version of a traditional game that could be manufactured by craftsmen? How will the design of your product help to preserve craft traditions? steven
thank you, steven for your comment... to answer your question about how I would preserve crafts: I am trying to create a toy, (not necessarily a traditional one) that would be crafted by craftsmen in India. This would retain the parctise of crafting objects, (perhaps in a different form)but I would still be empowering craftsmen, and promoting the idea of craft in the minds of young children. The Idea behind introducing traditional games, was fuzzy at first, but i think that the reason behind that was just to re-enforce my idea that making games is a good idea, because a lot of games that are know globally, originated in India.
Hi Samta, I was amused to see the metal boat in your list of iconic Indian toys. I remember getting one of those boats in India; when I got home, I tried it out, and it was surprisingly fun! I put it in the bathtub, and there was a little candle in the back. You lit the candle, the boat putt-putted through the water. I really liked that boat!
I also like your idea of showing how games that are popular around the world now often originated come in earlier traditions. The idea that snakes and ladders is a metaphor for cosmic duality, with its origins in mythology and religion, is fascinating. I would love to see a project that explored that theme, both as a new product design, but also as a meditation on the continuity and distortions of history. Steven
3 comments:
Hi Samta,
First, I am very pleased with the new direction your thesis project is taking; although I am somewhat alarmed at the lateness of this shift, I think you are beginning to explore very provacative and difficult questions, and I applaud your efforts to get to the bottom of very vexing problems that seem to lie at the heart of some alienating and soul-crushing features of life today.
I agree with you that craft activity, due to the slowness and repetitious nature of making things by hand, encourages a deeper sense of engagement with the physical world. The loss of craft traditions is an outcome of economic realities: as mass production methods have proliferated throughout the world, individual craftsmen cannot compete, and they end up dying off, and these traditions are lost. I don't think that traditional ways of doing things are automatically better, and I believe that we must resist the trap of nostalgia in thinking about old ways of doing things.
I really like your ideas about games. I was surprised to learn that snakes and ladders actually comes from India. I created a version of snakes and ladders that you may find interesting.
link
This version of the game allows blind kids to play the game using the Talking Tactile Tablet.
It sounds like you plan to explore your interest in preserving craft traditions in India by developing a game or version of a traditional game that could be manufactured by craftsmen? How will the design of your product help to preserve craft traditions?
steven
thank you, steven for your comment... to answer your question about how I would preserve crafts:
I am trying to create a toy, (not necessarily a traditional one) that would be crafted by craftsmen in India. This would retain the parctise of crafting objects, (perhaps in a different form)but I would still be empowering craftsmen, and promoting the idea of craft in the minds of young children. The Idea behind introducing traditional games, was fuzzy at first, but i think that the reason behind that was just to re-enforce my idea that making games is a good idea, because a lot of games that are know globally, originated in India.
Hi Samta,
I was amused to see the metal boat in your list of iconic Indian toys. I remember getting one of those boats in India; when I got home, I tried it out, and it was surprisingly fun! I put it in the bathtub, and there was a little candle in the back. You lit the candle, the boat putt-putted through the water. I really liked that boat!
I also like your idea of showing how games that are popular around the world now often originated come in earlier traditions. The idea that snakes and ladders is a metaphor for cosmic duality, with its origins in mythology and religion, is fascinating. I would love to see a project that explored that theme, both as a new product design, but also as a meditation on the continuity and distortions of history.
Steven
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