At some point I want to write an essay about how the diffusion of cheap visual technology and the medium of the internet have revived craftsmanship as an artistic ideal. In a perfect world, it would start at a factory somewhere in Asia where the means for the shift are being produced at an industrial scale, and then shift to the West, where artists are using these technologies in ways that acknowledge its mass-produced origins, but create things that are beautiful precisely because someone made them by hand. Of course, I'll probably never have the money to make the requisite trips to Asia, so that part will remain a dream, but it's still a cool idea; there's so many facets to this story that are just waiting to be written on. Is this a move away from the nihilistic technologism that's dominated art since Warhol? Or just a new facet of it? How does it reflect its economic understructure? Etc.
Regardless of whether I ever make it to Asia, whenever I try to write about this, Theo Jansen will figure prominently in it, since his work is so extraordinary and captures so much of what this movement towards craftsmanship is about.
Here's a not great video of him giving a lecture about his creations:
I highly recommend poking around his website... He's got some beautiful photography of his creatures up there that really conveys the majesty of his creations, something that's lost in the TED lecture.
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