4th year studio

Prof. Dov Ganchrow

“Studio Dalled” (Fourth year B.Des studies)

The Industrial Design Department

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

 

 

Rotational

 

First semester, Wednesday 10:00-13:00 (+Monday 18:00-19:00)

 

 

Course synopsis:

 

The course will focus on the idea of Rotational within the context of contemporary making.

 

Rotation comes into play in numerous ways when contemplating the relevance and possibilities proposed by making today. To begin with, it must be pointed out that rotational movement has forever been embedded in our existence through physics; from planetary movement, to tornados, and down to the atomic scale. We have been utilizing rotational movement principles in craft technologies for centuries, even millennia; wood and marble turning, drilling, centrifugal precious-metals casting, yarn-spinning, pottery throwing and so forth. Contemporary attitudes at times manipulate these traditional technologies, replacing materials, upgrading driving forces, rethinking outcomes and integrating digital tools in the process.

 

The rotational experience for people is also associated with alternative states of consciousness often brought-on during the manual tactile action of making things, also connected to spiritual and even religious well-being. Repetitive actions taken while crafting an object create a meditative state, some crafts persons describe being in what they are making. At the same time religious beliefs drive pilgrims rotationally around the Kaaba in Mecca or around mt. Kailash in Tibet, Sufi Dervishes whirl, Jews spin Dreidels - and celebrate the “hag” (Heb: holiday/circumvent) and Tibetan Buddhist monks turn prayer wheels.

 

The passing-down of a craft tradition, like our measurement of time, is rotational with mother being replaced by daughter, being replaced by mother, yet returning to the same point – is never the same. In what way do our contemporary technologies and state of being touch craft as it comes around again? How is the knowledge of making passed-on in an age of social media, multi-layered communication, and accelerated change?

 

A discussion of rotational will inevitably also include an identification of the axis around which rotation occurs, whether mechanical or conceptual, a relationship will have been established. Or as a ceramicist will tell you when you sit by the potters-wheel for the first time: “find your center!”.

 

*The course may be held in collaboration with the China Academy of Art.