The Art of Looking Sideways

"Among the many characteristics which has been identified as peculiar to the human species - language, laughter, politics, love and cruelty - the one which is often overlooked is the capacity to be delighted and diverted by the exercise of the senses. Although these systems were evolved to furnish reliable knowledge of the external world, man is unique in exploiting them for sheer enjoyment. In fact a large proportion of his energy and ingenuity is spent on re-arranging the external world for the express purpose of providing more delightful perceptions. Even in communities which live on the margins of subsistence, scarce resources of time and energy are dedicated to the pleasures derived from decoration and ornament, and in more developed societies the amount of labour devoted to such provisions is taken to be one of the most significant measures of its civilisation." (Miller in Fletcher 2001:139)

Johnathan Miller
Extract from the foreword to 'The Paradox box', Redstone Press (London 1999).


"Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been made" (Heisenberg in Fletcher 2001:26).

Werner Karl Heisenberg


"A hand axe discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya is over a million and a half years old. As a metaphor for the first thing made by men, it prefigures the whole of making and shaping. No earlier artefact exists on earth." (Fletcher 2001:20)


"In a world where tools might have been the most important thing made, their qualities were sometimes brought to perfection far beyond the needs of practicality." (Fletcher 2001:20).


"Whoever said pleasure wasn't functional?" (Eames in Fletcher 2001:412).

Charles Eames.


FLETCHER, Alan. 2001. The Art of Looking Sideways. Phaidon.