On 04/10/14 20.14, Robert J. Lang wrote:
what do you think we should use
as a short, ideally single-word descriptor, of the object and the person,
and why?
I have also pondered what to call these things, and have no definite
answers. But at least here are some more words.
For some reason people often make an analogy to music. I do think
another analogy is better: that of cooking.
- Cooking is clearly an art (don't say it's not, after all we have Noma
right here in Copenhagen). Even if it is often called gastronomy if you
think of cooking as an art.
- Cooking can also be seen as a craft.
- Like origami, but unlike music, you are interested in the end result,
not in the performance.
- Cooking is often presented as performances in tv shows and live.
However, in contrast to music, but like origami, you would never want to
wait through and watch the more complex pieces in their entirety.
- The cook invents and designs new meals, applying materials and colours
in certain sequences that may be reproduced. The cook may invent or
design new sequences for the cooking process.
- The cook may or may not write down the recipes, and describe how to
perform them.
- Recipes may be described, lay-outed etc. by other people.
- Cooks may cook according to recipes that are not their own.
- The end result is a physical object, usually of ephemeral nature, but
can also be more lasting for displays. (Most origami I do is very
ephemeral as well, lasting only during my
teaching/folding/performance/design process).
- The recipes may be interpreted in many ways. A master cook may make
inspired meals from mediocre recipes, and vice versa.
To me, the level of interpretation of origami diagrams is more like that
of cooking according to recipes than that of playing according to music.
That might of course just be due to me being a better cook than a
musician ;-)
Thanks by the way, to Dennis for bringing the notion of interpretation
into the discussion.
- Some cooks use scientific frontier methods in their cooking (cf.
molecular gastronomy).
- Great cooks plan ahead and experiment with details of the recipes
before cooking the actual meal. "Pre-studies".
- The difference between a great meal and a poor meal lies in the
artistry and technical competence of the cook.
All this brings me to say, that taking in terms by analogy from other
areas is likely to be awkward. Who would like to call folders for
"cooks" even if it *is* a great analogy?
The general terms of design, designer, artist, art, and artwork applies
nicely to origami. Personally I prefer "design" to "composition", even
if "composition" fits nicely with music, painting, and, yes, cooking.
However, "composition" is something a painting has, not something it is.
In music you distinguish the composer and the musician, and both may or
may not be artists (trust me, when I play, I'm no where near being an
artist in its spiritual, intellectual sense; and a very poor one indeed
in the word's prosaic sense).
The cook, or musician, is the folder. Whether that folder is an artist,
and the end result an artwork, is more like an orthogonal pretension.
Just like gastronomy is more pretentious than cooking, even though you
do the same thing.
The recipe designer, or composer, is, well, the origami designer. A
design, and a designer, in this sense is an artist, like Erik Mortensen
in fashion and Escoffier or Bocuse in cooking. "Design" in this sense is
not cold, but creative, warm, humanistic.
Currently I prefer to use the words "Design" and "designer" of the
abstract model, and "fold" and "folder" of the concrete model.
I acknowledge Robert's notion that a "model" is often something you have
on the way to the final result (sometimes even in the sense model =
original, like when you make a painting of a person). But maybe the
problem is in insisting on using the same term for the object and the
actor.
Galen T Pickett wrote:
"Piece" is a perfectly good way to describe the complex nexus of ideas that
model and fold and composition gets at?
and I like that term. Only I have another concern in that I miss a good
equivalent in Danish; the terms design, art, model, and fold have good
and plain equivalents in Danish, and though we have a direct translation
of "piece" ("stykke"), it is a bit off in the sense intended here. In
Danish it sounds weird to talk about an "origamistykke", even if it is
perfectly acceptable to talk about a "musikstykke".
Another option for the fold/final concrete model could be "opus" (in
Danish "værk" or more high-strung "opus"). That might actually catch
some of the pretension of being "art" that Robert tries to capture; and
indeed is used by Robert on his own homepage when presenting the series
of his works.
Not having nailed anything, I hope the above adds something to your
analysis,
Hans
Hans Dybkjær
papirfoldning.dk, society foldning.dk
PS: On a side thread, the biggest difference between cooking and origami
(at least according to current mainstream origami community) I see is
that recipes cannot be copyrighted. You might copyright exact wording,
just like concrete diagrams are copyright, but neither the recipe as an
abstract procedure nor the end result, the meal, are copyrighted.
