Nowadays, when unpacking a new product, there are instructions on how to use it properly. But you don't even take the time to read them anymore - some companies have even deleted them. This instinctive phenomenon of knowing how to plug in, turn on, program and use these objects is akin to a survival instinct, a series of innate actions that are so obvious that you do them without even realizing it. Yet they have replaced much more complex activities to meet our basic needs. Here, we have chosen to highlight a work that recreates a link between current objects and past techniques. By observing the survivalist guides of Jaap Smit and Magda Skibinska, our objective is not to criticize the loss of these techniques - not very useful today - but to observe the way these techniques were embodied in mass-market products.
We are gradually becoming more dependent on the technology that has been invented to make our lives easier. We continuously have to (re)learn how to understand the technology behind new products. Survival skills are timeless as they are universal — the knowledge necessary for operating products becomes obsolete as soon as a new product is being introduced. The publications form a series of 4 where the focus is on
Credits : Text from "The SAS Survival Guide by John 'Lofty' Wiseman", Collins gem, published in 1993. Quotes from "Walden; or Life in the Woods" by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854.
