My year at university was the first where no essay or disitation would be accepted if it was handwritten. I had no access to a computer and in my youthful righteousness I campaigned against this as I could see where it was leading. All my generations granparents could hand write beautifully. I could see that the computer was a great leveller, those with poor hand writing need worry no more, if you were crap at mental arithmatic you were free, for those who's sole advantage over other kids was our ability to draw it was terrible, all these kids were now better than us who had spent thier whole lives developing our drawing skills.
I have reverted to writing important letters to clients by hand. When I get mail, mostly computer generated, the odd hand written one jumps out as the human amongst the robots. Years of evolution have taken us to this point and we are at the front and all this is communicated in the subtle variation and innacuracies of our hand writing.
CNC technolgy can now create what to the human eye look like hand carved wooden objects. Does it matter how an object came into existence if it differs in no way to it's hand crafted brother. This question lies at the very heart of our relationship and valueing of craftworks and probably is the reason for thier spiral off into obscurity.
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