There are many reasons I’m glad I am the age I am. Of course there are also many reasons I’m not. But one of the reasons I am is that when there were skills to be learned, I learned them in a very hands on way. In much the way many of those skills had been learned for decades, if not longer, than before my time.
This post about a slide rule simulator from Lewin Day on Hackaday caught my eye this morning. My father taught me how to use a slide rule the summer before I was to need one in school. I didn’t take to it easily and it took me a while. I pretty much hated the chore all along the way. But it turned into one of those things I’m grateful to my Dad for having the patience and determination to make me learn. I have his slide rule somewhere in storage that I’ll need to dig out someday.
The fact that software exists to acquaint users with the skill, or any of range of other skills, is a good thing and on so many levels we call that progress. Rightly so. That said, I don’t think there’s any real substitute for hands on tactile learning of certain skills to understand the fundamentals.
As I progressed through my theatre education I took courses in lighting, scene, and costume design. I had to learn drafting using T-squares, pencils, pens, triangles, French curves, a compass, and all sorts of templates on a drafting board my Dad built for me. Again, I have all of that stashed away in storage somewhere.
I learned all of those fundamentals for tasks that many of the younger designers I work with never had to as they came of age when software could render and change a design in a comparative instant. Computers and technology have replaced so much in my profession from conception to execution. It’s actually quite efficient and made many things possible that weren’t before. Although I do find it humorous on occasion when I rely on some of those long ago learned fundamentals that are no longer really necessary for young designers and technicians to know, actually lead to a solution for the problem we’re attempting to solve.
I’m certainly not criticizing by going on this nostalgia dip into the past. As I said, technology has made many things possible in the theatre that weren’t before. But it does make me wonder how this new wave of Artificial Intelligence might or might not replace the shorter paths that were adopted after my time learning the ropes. I’m guessing somewhere some AI seduced producer is wondering if he’ll even need a team of designers in the future.
I think I’ll take a trip to storage soon and pull out some of my old kit.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
(Image from Lewin Day’s post on Hackaday)
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 