Preamble: I have been sitting on this post for a while – it has languished in my “drafts” folder while I do all sorts of other things. Recently there has been an upsurge in discussion around the topic of what is/who is/how can we define DIY on the mailing list for the Upgrade! International network. New Media Scotland, where I work, is one of these international nodes, which is why I’m taking part in the discussion on the mailing list. The upsurge in discussions on the Upgrade! list about DIY has inspired me to finally pull this post out of the “drafts” folder.
Edinburgh’s medical school, founded in 1726 (the creation of which was the idea of Provost George Drummond, who is the subject of another “draft” post), produced scores of excellent physicians, and included the study of human anatomy as a crucial part of the curriculum. The doctors that emerged from this school, because of their hands-on studies, were willing and able to get hands-on with their patients. Doctors graduating from other schools at the time, including Oxford and Cambridge, were discouraged from performing such manual tasks and left the physical work of medicine to the barber-surgeon. Because of the integrated approach to medicine received in their training and then implemented in their work, Scottish doctors gained a reputation for the exellence of their work, and proved to be very popular with patients.
Fast forward a few hundred years, to art colleges and other similar institutions (let’s call them “finishing schools”), particularly in continental Europe. At one particular “finishing school” in Europe, more than one artist I know has recounted to me the same tale: as the artist, they are expected to supply the concept only. Execution (in these cases, of computer-assisted or technology-based artworks) of the piece is to be done by a technician, who will be hired to complete whatever background programming needs to be done on a piece to make it work. (For some reason, no one sees this as absurd, and perhaps akin to asking a painter to hire someone to mix the paint and apply it to the canvas.)
Thinking about the plight of artists that I know who were in the situation of being told that they must not dirty their hands with solving mere technical difficulties (a restriction that, of course, they flouted and though obliged to hire technicians, taught themselves as much of the technology that they could) made me think of the Scottish physicians that I had read about earlier. Rather than relegate the hands-on work to “technicians”, the Edinburgh-trained physician at that time was encouraged to work with both his hands and his head. Has the myth of the artist as a sort of mystical creator prevented the evolution of arts education, stalling it to a place earlier than the 1700s Edinburgh standard for medical education?
DIY might be grubbing around on the floor searching for the right cable, or prodding the murky guts of your patient for a twisted bowel; though it might also be something more lofty, interesting, or inspiring the rest of the time. DIY is the process by which knowledge burns itself into your brain because of the hard work of your hands. DIY is the unification of concept and action into a more complete, and more human, whole. DIY is both a doctor stitching your wound, and an artist sweating over a soldering gun on the day of the exhibition opening.
(Sources: How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman; hearsay and gossip in and around art schools)