{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","uuid":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","normalized_title":"timeconsumptionandeverydaylifepracticematerialityandculture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%2C%20Consumption%20and%20Everyday%20Life%20Practice%2C%20Materiality%20and%20Culture","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/search"},"page":{"printed_page":210,"pdf_page":209,"physical_index":209,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4e6b69e080b4f71161c7b1b56b8959870e4105d181f85f12da6ca7da438fa263"},"chapter":"List of Tables and Figures","content":"So it is with boats. ‘V’s experience already hints at the way that boats are not only worked on, but also approached and appreciated emotionally and sensually. But how do boats bring these experiences about? What are the mechanisms by which wooden boats evoke strong feelings? What is the agency of boats when they intrigue us, and capture and move us emotionally?\n\nOne obvious answer is that wooden boats have been collectively established as altogether superior in terms of aesthetic and tacit qualities. After fibre-glass became a dominant boat-building material in the late 1960s, it did not take long for boating discourse to suggest that the aesthetic qualities of wooden boats were quite simply distinctive. Wooden boats still enjoy such a distinguished position and receive ongoing support so that this status is maintained. Architects and industrial designers frequently practise wooden boating, and articulate its aesthetics in ways that make use of their professional skills. In such cases, wooden boating benefits from the design expertise of those who do it while at the same time providing materials for aesthetic play.\n\nAesthetic delineations and categorizations like ‘clinker-built hulls are ugly, but carvel-built hulls are beautiful’ represent feelings about boats. Contemporary practices also celebrate the tactile properties of wood and of wooden boating. As Skogström spells out, ‘the smell of wood, the looks and the warmness and the sounds of water touching it, emphasize the joy of building and owning wooden boats’ (1994: 47, translation from Finnish by the author). It is thus not only the boats themselves, but the very activity of wooden boating, and the feeling in the boat, that have been given an aesthetic quality. Furthermore, boats in general, like the cars in Sheller’s account, open up and offer kinaesthetic experiences: acceleration, the sensation of cutting smoothly and repeatedly through waves on a tack on open sea, the rolling sea and creeping sea-sickness. Likewise, boats establish their own soundscape of engines, howling wind and tight ropes, and of the hull squeaking and resonating under heavy stress. Moving, roaring and shivering things appear especially good at evoking feelings, and wooden boats are no exception.\n\nGiven such experiential and sensational qualities, it is no wonder that owners become attached to their boats, firmly tapping them after harbouring from a rough ride and turning back to give them a last quick look from a distance. It is also no wonder that ex-boat-owners frequently cry when parting for good and handing the boat over to a new and, they hope, good home.\n\nThe infrastructure of wooden boating reflects these intimate relations. As unique objects, boats, almost always, and often also by law, have names compared with the plain registration numbers of cars. On the other hand, the beauty contests of wooden boats are set up to both establish and evaluate their distinctive qualities. Personification is present also on the internet. For example, the web-pages for wooden boats under the auspices of the city of Kotka (a middle-size Finnish coastal town) initially adopted a rhetoric of pet-care: the site called the ‘The Clinic of Wooden Boats’ featured a ‘Doctor of Wooden Boats’ who disseminated expertise and suggested treatment for particular problems. Wooden boating is thick with various verbal and practical ways of treating the objects as worthy of good care. In the next section I explore the meaning of naming and personalization in greater detail.\n\n210\n\n• Mikko Jalas","previous_page":209,"next_page":211}