Adam Savage is an experienced special effects designer and fabricator who has a YouTube channel where he shows how to build stuff. In this video he is building a Totoro, one of the creatures from Hayao Miyazaki’s film, My Friend Totoro. The video is fascinating. Note several things: 1. He is very experienced in doing this kind of thing. 2. He has a well-equipped shop, lots of tools and materials. 3. He works without a plan, so he has to figure out how to do it. 4. He improvises a lot.
Why am I posting this video? In the first place, how people make things interests me. Beyond that, I’m thinking about a more playful future.
If we’re going to be living in a world where we only have to work 15 hours a week, we need to fill a lot of time. We are going to be spending a lot of time playing, in one way or another, and preparing for play. Why not build costumes?
Of course, Americans have one annual costume festival, Halloween. But for the most part we regard costumes as being for kids, though adults have costume parties as well. This or that community may celebrate a Victorian Christmas, where people get decked out in Victorian ware. And so forth. But only the well-off can afford to have really nice costumes.
Why not a world where everyone has, say, one bespoke costume a year? I’m not imagining that everyone would make their own. Few people have the time to work up the skills Adam Savage has, nor does it make sense for every family to have such a well-equipped shop. But I’d think that in a world arranged for different (more playful) purposes such skills would be more widely distributed in the population and well-equipped community workshops would be common.
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Addendum: Multiple Totoros at Comic-con!
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