I Have Feelings: an ancient mammal in the modern world.

Hello Laurie,

If a machine could make a better pot than you, would you still bother?

Probably not.  

Simon

Dear Simon,

Yes, actually I would. 

I’m pro hospitals, planes, Uber and online shopping. I like my beer carbonated, refrigerated and conveniently packaged. I type these responses on my computer or phone and sometimes I use a dictaphone too. I love technology. How does this laptop work? I have no fucking idea… and why are we still playing with clay in the age of Artificial Intelligence? What is it about this moreish, squishy shit, that has us so entranced? 

We are living through the fourth industrial revolution. The merging of the physical, digital and biological worlds. Crazy new things are invented every day. It feels like a metallic surge. A great self inflicted crushing and simultaneously the second enlightenment. And sometimes I get a bit worried for my children and the future. And I freak out about my livelihood and being replaced by machines but then I remember: Clay doesn’t give a fuck about artificial intelligence. The techno-knobs will tell you that clay isn't a standalone species or a singular cognisant identity. It's not its own thing they’ll say, but a banal collection of minerals. I think that's narrow-minded bullshit. Clay may be a conglomeration of things but they are all holding hands. If you’ve ever dug your own wet clay out of a river bank you know what I mean. Clay is alive. No one invented clay. It’s the least manufactured thing imaginable outside of space. Clay’s timelines and wisdom are measured in aeons. It is the oldest of mediums. Literally earth, fire and water. And yet it remains at the forefront of this latest revolution because silicon begets silica which makes up a significant portion of all clay bodies and… the chips that run machine learning. Most people think of clay as an ancient thing, and it is, but it's also radically current. It's got its dirty little fingers in everything. Jingdezhen, Stoke on Trent and Silicon Valley have more in common than you might think. 

There are amazing advances in technology today that may profoundly impact the future. Meanwhile, we humans have to deal with those challenges using the same running gear we’ve had since the Stone Age. Our external tools evolve but our bodies remain the same. We are no more cognitively adept at dealing with change than our stone-slinging ancestors (who I might note, took a fucking Dire Wolf and turned it into a poodle). This brave new world will require caution and emotional intelligence. The quickest way to be involuntarily arse fucked by A.I is to surrender to narrow definitions of knowledge and understanding. We are ancient mammals. Not everything can be explained to us with maths. I think feeling is underrated. Total understanding does not equate to happiness. I didn't marry my wife because she looked good on paper. Intuition counts. Bob Marley said “Who feels it knows it” but he also believed that a tiny Ethiopian dictator was the second coming of Christ so is probably not the best example. Moving on. 

Simon, your question implies that I need a pot. I don’t. Nobody does. Not really. And potting is only a bother when it's going poorly and that's a temporary problem. I think ‘would I still bother’ implies a competition that can no longer be won. A defeatist’s surrender. A type of simpering, passive retreat from love. This pottery thing is not a contest. There is nothing to win. You don't go for a walk on the beach to prove you have legs. No amount of machine made pottery, regardless of its quality, can bother me. I’m not filling a gap in the market. I’m filling a gap in my soul. We talk about intelligence as if it only exists in our brains. Machines are not the enemy Simon, humans are. I am already making pots with machines and am not bothered in the slightest. Is a wheel not a machine? And the kiln or the phone in your pocket? Am I not also some kind of machine? Maybe we are the outcome of a lost revolution. Maybe we are the final product and the future isn't new but repeating itself! Regardless of all this neurological thrashing, I just like making pots.

I grow from the collective agitation of my independent practice and the community it sits within. Our work, our creative energy expands across time like a hum. A vibration. It’s never me versus the machine because I’m not playing a game of comparison. I’m a ceramic adventurer not a means of production. Pottery is a participatory relationship. A dance between biological sausages, human, silicon et al. If you don't engage, nothing happens. So I bother, regardless of efficiency or economy. I touch clay outwardly and it touches me inwardly. That sounds ruder than I’d anticipated. I know this is flaky, but reality has its limits. 

XL

*Haile Selassie I. Emperor of Ethiopia 1930-1974