Conversations: from one tool to another
It is very easy to pick up and move the older wooden ladder, it is much lighter and simple to operate, intuition knows how it works. With the newer ladder it is much heavier and more complex, there is a contraption at the top which needs two hands to pull and twist to allow the ladder to open. With this heaviness and complexity there is sturdiness, robustness and a new skill required to operate it.
Conversations explores the evolution of tools and the idea that as a species we have a constant drive to create and evolve. With each evolution there is an adjustment, a new skill to learn, a new material to become familiar with. In a sense, the knowledge and skill of the last tool is held within the new one.
Conversations comprises of arranging older and newer versions of objects into positions where they are talking to each other, a conversation between the old and the new, considering what is gained and lost with the evolution of tools.
As our world becomes more complex, knowledge and skills are distributed, we specialise, and technology becomes our filing system. What once was a shared material intelligence is dissipating. These objects, these tools that now fill our lives come from very distant places, made by people we will never meet and are made through processes we don’t understand. They are made up of complex materials and require many hands that we never see or think to look for. Within every object there are so many human connections.
If we stop and have a conversation, who knows what we will uncover?
