====== Redefining Craft & Thinking in Patterns ======

//Notes from a session held at the Luminous Green Retreat, 29th of April 2007//

Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl

Main theme: using pattern as a language to connect different fields of knowledge and practice - understanding reality as a shared pattern

For example: observing the role of pattern within a traditional crafts context and also the context of digital technologies and new materials - bridging the gap between past and future, old and new

Using such a pattern based approach when looking at historical developments can have an advantage over a linear approach because:

  * forwards and backwards are an "illusion"
  * changes are complex and need to be understood on a transformational level
  * changing patterns can not easily be reduced into dichotomies: good/bad, material/spiritual 

===== pattern in different contexts: =====


  * patterns show the connections between distinct elements therefore helping to understand the essence of things
  * regularity, repeatablility: spatial patterns, temporal patterns
  * observing patterns allows us to "open them up"
    * seeing patterns within patterns
    * a way to explore the concept of infinity 
  * 3-dimensional structures create different patterns depending on our point of view
  * noise or randomness can be described as a lack of pattern
  * architecture can be described as patterns on various scales that are defined by human behaviour within it
    * creation of "alive" architecture (christopher alexander) 
  * pattern based design solutions allow for flexible modular solutions that can adapt to change
  * patterns are a part of cultural identities in the form of artefacts, textiles, buildings
    * we recogise different cultures by there use of patterns 
  * patterns describe proportional relationsips: musical harmonies, golden ratio
  * meaning only arises within as when we recognise pattern
  * verbal/textual language is a shared pattern
  * pattern is a way of coping, a suggestion for survival
    * describing the joy of birth 
  * consciouness is a pattern 

===== Notes on craft: =====


  * crafts add value to an object compared to mechanized production
  * craft has a potential for personal development - provides a non-intellectual, physical and contemplative activity that allows us to explore materials
  * the cycle of production has been split into several stages that where once connected: research, design and fabrication used to involve one person or group of people working together whereas now we have a situation where these different stages are split between different people working in different places, possibly even continents 

===== Notes on Vasu/Barefoot college: =====
 

Main principles:

  - living together in a community
  - learning by doing, unlearning and relearning (illiterate people can understand basic princinples of electric circuits through practical concepts like colour coding)
  - learner becomes a teacher during the process 

Importance of 1-liner (a simple, yet imaginative way of describing your organisation/activity), especialy in a country with many illiterate or half-literate people. Barefoot college 1-liner:

**ACKNOWLEDGE INTERDEPENDENCE RATHER THAN DEPENDENCE**

  * recoginsing your role within a community
  * self-empowering members of a community to do mentoring/teaching 

continual challenges sustain the project - being able to adapt solutions for different regions/climatic situations

===== discussing population growth and sustainablility =====


  * having kids -> 2 vs 1.72 or none...
  * what does having kids have to do with sustainable issues... (perhaps sustaining a population?)