I Love Patina

This blog post will be slightly different than the usual Mathematics/CompSci focused posting.

When I used to study architecture, because I didn’t own a computer that had Windows installed on it, I would do many of the drawings required for the courses by hand. There I learned the absolute value there is in using tools which were made specifically for a single task. For example, I started out using drawing pencils (the ones that come in different hardness) to do the drawings. You’ll notice eventually that although the hardness is very important for drawing, the thickness with which the lines get made is equally if not more important. This meant that using regular wooden drawing pencils wouldn’t cut it, they would get blunt and thicken too fast. This is where mechanical drawing pencils came in. To this day, mechanical drawing pencils are my go-to when writing things down because of their versatility and resilience. Something else I’ve noticed about owning a single one of these pencils for the past 8 years is: this pencil might be plastic in some places and metal in others, but the used look of it looks very nice.

I enjoy using tools that were purpose-made for a single task. Whereas some people own a phone and perhaps a tablet or laptop, which is more than sufficient for most people I think, my everyday-carry with regards to technology consists of a laptop, an MP3 player a phone and an e-reader. I work, only on my laptop. I read, only on my e-reader. I listen to music, only from my MP3 player. I message people and communicate with others, only through my phone.

The consequence of using tools which were constructed with the explicit purpose of fulfilling a single niche is that these tools tend to last a lot longer than other tools which were made to be versatile. A Swiss Army Knife probably gets a lot more use than a general utility knife and as such, might experience degradation at a rate a lot higher. The general utility knife will, most likely, be made with the hindsight of exactly how it will be used and reinforced in places where it gets most affected. Similarly, since I’m a photographer, I used to try and purchase the highest-end phonse in order to take better pictures with them. However, this resulted in phones that were extremely expensive, would break down easily (possibly because of planned obsolescence as well) and the general quality of the pictures was still rivaled by mid-to-entry level D-SLR cameras. My D-SLR camera will not one day get a software update which will brick it and I am not expected to replace it in 4 years when the built-in irreplaceable battery ultimately gets inflamed because of heavy use.

The consequense of using tools which last very long is that one starts to notice the signs of use on these tools. Like a hammer receives a darkened sheen around its handle, so do the buttons on your car’s dashboard get glossy and the metal on door knobs gets their distinct hand-shaped stains. A clear example of this is the oxidised crust tha bronze and copper takes when exposed to the elements for a prolonged period of time. This “crust” is called patina, the star of this post. Patina has taken a new meaning ever since it was first coined and it is now used to refer to the physical appearance an object takes after it is aged or used a lot.

Now I would like to take a detour and talk about some teapots that I own. I like Chinese tea ceremonies, specially Gongfu tea preparation. On that note, I’m not Chinese, I don’t know anyone who is Chinese in person who can confirm that the way in which I prepare tea is actually the correct Gongfu preparation method. The preparation method is not important for this, the tools are. In this case, a special teapot made out of Yixing clay is used. The clay is, from what I understand most times, used without being glazed. The reason for doing this is both practical and phylosophical. The clay not being glazed makes it so that every time you steep leaves with the teapot, the oils in the leaves penetrate the pourous clay and eventually the flavors in the leaves get imbued into the teapot itself. The phylosophical reason is that when these oils get imbued into the clay, the clay can appear slightly glazed. I have not confirmed this myself in person so take that with a grain of salt.

The idea that an object is made to only be enjoyed after you have used it hundreds to thousands of times seems very interesting to me. On the flip-side of this coin, objects that are made to only be enjoyed a few times when you first buy them are infuriating to me. This is what they call: Planned Obsolescence. However, I would like to go somewhere in between and talk about objects which were both made to be used for a long time but also weren’t made to look good after being used for a long time. This has been made specially apparent to me when viewing the newfound aesthetic for modern objects:

1. shiny
2. glass

Viewing Apple’s new glass UI, most modern-looking cars have a sleek/shiny exterior, we tend to associate shiny clean things with modern aesthetics and modern aesthetics are in. But this aesthetetic, surgical-room glass doesn’t permit any patina. Your shiny car looks “ugly” once the paint starts fading and getting rough. It doesn’t matter if your phone’s screen isn’t cracked, if the edges have started chipping, “ugly.”

This brings me to more recent events. I recently traveled to Florida for vacation, went to Disney and Universal. While there, we visited many, many shops and at the end of all of it I had succesfully purchased 5 things in the span of two weeks. None of which were exclusive to Disney/Universal shops. We visited shops related to specific characters, franchises, themes and none had anything that I wanted to buy. My apprehension to buying merchandise related to things that interest me is that fundamentally, those things were never made with the intention of lasting any reasonable amount of time. If I buy a jacket, I expect to be able to use that jacket for several years. Let alone buy anything plastic whose painted-on exterior will fade after a handful of uses or washes.

So how do I close this post? Well, I am both a developer and an artist which also makes me a maker of “things.” Since I make things, I’ll make sure that the things I make have had some amount of thought put into how it will look like after many years. Some examples of this are this very webpage you are reading. This has existed since 2021 and ever since then I’ve made many, many changes to it. But, for the past few years I’ve narrowed down to a very specific aesthetic and organization on it. So now, I expect you, the reader, to also put in some effort. If you’re a maker, put in the effort to plan how your craft will be used and look like after years of use. If you’re not a maker, put in the effort to actually reuse things for many years, find out what old pieces of tech you can bring life back into for example. Do you really need the latest flagship iPhone? If you’re the CEO of Samsung or Apple, what are you doing here?? Nevertheless, please consider making devices which will actually look okay after being used. (this is fundamentally against the motivations of such companies and will therefore probably never happen)

Anyways, thanks for reading.

Post scriptum

One last thing I’d like to talk about is a recent phenomenon called minimalist-slop. Recently, many companies have sprouted up making products which are supposed to be “minimalist.” This is very similar to how many companies were created during the Green-washing era. I believe these objects, although not all fit inside the shiny/glass aesthetic I mentioned, still suffer from the same consequences of those aesthetic motivations.