CONCEPT
The Regulation of Appearance
Pye's term for the maker's control over the visible and tactile qualities of the finished work — the surface, the finish, the texture — and the capacity in risk workmanship that AI has, for the first time in the history of making, decoupled from the making itself.
In risk workmanship, the regulation of appearance is the maker's responsibility and, simultaneously, the maker's art. Every gradient, texture, and variation in surface quality reflects skill, judgment, and relationship to the material. The turner who finishes a bowl by hand regulates its appearance through decisions — the thickness of the oil, the direction of application, the number of coats — exercised in real time on this specific piece. In certainty workmanship, the regulation is predetermined: the spray booth determines the finish, quality control parameters set the acceptable range. The regulation has been transferred from maker to machine. AI output has its own regulation of appearance, built into the model's weights: coherence, polish, well-structured prose, professional register. This regulation is seductive in a specific way — it breaks the historical correlation between surface quality and making quality.
