The Desire to Express Oneself
I found that while reading both “Fab� by Gershenfeld and the article about light and silence by Kahn that there was a shared idea. This idea has to with expressing oneself in any way that they feel like. Kahn takes the side that any living thing has the desire to express themselves whether it be a human, animal, plant, or anything else that is living. These expressions can be as simple as what to eat or they way it moves. It doesn’t matter what it is doing as long as it is expressing itself. Kahn’s colleague Ricolais stated that man did not decide to make the first thing because of the knowledge he had obtained, but because he wanted to validate himself and feed his intuition.
Humans choose to express themselves a lot through creation. For example artist Ahuva Mu'alem created this painting to express his feelings.
Kahn belives that like artwork and other creations “everything must begin with poetry.�
Gershenfeld describes more about why men create, specifically through technology. He believes that it has to do with the desire to create something personal, to gain the satisfaction of creating it and of using it after it has been created. When he began his class at MIT many more students registered than he was expecting, which he explains, is because of our desire to fabricate products that fulfill our own pleasure or needs. Even those students who didn’t have any background with technology were willing to learn what to do to express themselves through their creation. For example Kelly created the Scream Body which allows one to scream into the device which will muffle the sound so that it does not bother anyone else.
I definitely agree with what both authors say because I can see that in myself. When I work really hard on something and am proud of what I’ve created I want to show it to anyone around me even if they have no idea what I was trying to create. Most of the time they are supportive, but no one besides me really understands what this piece means to me, what exactly I was trying to express and the feeling of validity I have gained from it.