wabi tek sabi
wabi tek sabi
tom jennings, december 2011
tom jennings, april 2019
introduction
wabi tek sabi is way of seeing and living with human craft and<br>technology. like the japanese idea of wabi sabi it has much to do with<br>aesthetics and pleasure, but it is mainly a way to look at, work with, and live<br>with, technology.
what is wabi sabi?
wabi sabi is a japanese worldview that accepts the world as in constant<br>change, one where beauty is intimately interwoven with imperfection and<br>transience. in wabi sabi nothing is ever complete; life begins in chaos and<br>ends in decay. in wabi sabi all beauty is "flawed" (in a western sense); not<br>diminished by imperfection but beautiful because of it.
wabi sabi is a way to see beauty in an imperfect and inconstant world. the<br>words wabi and sabi are difficult to translate to english, and have somewhat<br>vague meanings in japanese. from "a provisional<br>definition":
sabi: refers to things (objects); temporal events; outwardly directed;
wabi: refers to way of life (relationships); spatial events; inwardly directed;
wabi sabi began, centuries ago, as a reaction of japanese monied classes'<br>desire for more enhanced, exclusive and rarefied aesthetic pleasures, and<br>therefore has a substantial and rarely discussed class component, expanded on<br>elsewhere here.
wabi sabi is at best, and in this document, a way of intentionally seeing<br>(finding or creating) beauty in the everyday, the mundane, the imperfect; of<br>seeing things as dynamic situations rather than static, fixed ‘objects’.
objects with wabi sabi
it is easiest to talk about wabi sabi objects, and since wabi sabi developed<br>around japanese tea ceremonies, a brief look at that may illuminate.
wabi sabi objects are often seen as "rustic" because it is how they first<br>appear; unsophisticated, rough, simple. given that monied classes most obvious<br>attribute is sophistication, refined and complex, interest in things wabi sabi<br>would at first appear to be contradictory. but monied classes already had<br>access to things of the highest quality, similar to today’s "high end" consumer<br>perfection. it is the very paradox of this juxtaposition that embodies, or<br>creates, the beauty of wabi sabi. (this seeming paradox is loosely analogous to<br>buying expensively pre-ripped jeans, but traditional wabi sabi is far more<br>concerned with issues of authenticity and the human processes that created the<br>wabi sabi object.)
traditional wabi sabi does not welcome flaw nor imperfection into what might<br>be called ‘functional’ life; there is no pleasure in a leaking roof or broken<br>plumbing. wabi sabi is very selective of what it borrows from more rustic<br>living. wabi sabi involves very carefully selected aspects of the underlying<br>ideas associated with zen buddhism, ascetism and self-imposed austerity. actual<br>poverty is nowhere to be found within wabi sabi.
flaws and imperfections provide a contrast to intentional elements of an<br>object’s construction; for example lumps and rough texture in a clay cup, or<br>variations in the color of the glaze ensure each item is unique.
it is generally argued that wabi sabi cannot be intentionally created; that<br>it is a complex, subtle, irreversible side effect of use and age, and that<br>attempts to create wabi sabi will fail.
what is wabi tek sabi?
wabi tek sabi is way of seeing and living with human craft and technology in<br>the world. like wabi sabi it certainly has much to do with aesthetics and<br>pleasure, but it is mainly a way to look at, work with, and live with<br>technology.
we all have our favorite objects; comfortably worn-out shoes we can’t bear<br>to part with; we watch the holes grow larger as we wear them year in and year<br>out. a new tool patinas; that patina eventually becomes objectionable wear. a<br>shiny new object may stand out from others like it, until it too achieves the<br>warm dull patina of use and becomes part of a household. mundane things become<br>personalized. objects treated in this way are ongoing, long-term<br>situations, relationships between people and objects, that is not simply<br>about money and is not necessarily fully rational; they give us pleasure and<br>usefulness both.
it is the combination of object and human attention that creates the<br>situation of wabi tek sabi. these situations are the very essence of wabi tek<br>sabi. where wabi sabi finds beauty in objects subjected to various (generally<br>unacknowledged or unseen) processes of wear and use; wabi tek sabi embraces the<br>processes and situations themselves that lead to to the creation of an object’s<br>dynamic situation.
comparison of wabi tek sabi, wabi sabi and modernism
this is necessarily a crude and simplistic comparison, but it may highlight<br>some of the major characteristics of the three systems of thought:
comparisons between wabi sabi, wabi tek sabi, modernism
wabi tek sabiwabi sabimodernism<br>active participationpassive observerpassive consumer<br>accumulated historyaccumulated historydenies obsolete past<br>hidden workingssurfacessurfaces<br>past,...