Podcasts
Martin Woolner University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK.
This podcast is intended for educational use only.
Throughout our history there are many examples which illustrate advances in the knowledge and understanding of craft practice through the production of artefacts that have employed or subverted advances in technology.
As we journey through the 21st Century, the impact of digital communication and its output through new manufacturing techniques provides opportunities that define new relationships, not only of the maker to technique but also to the idea, result and, ultimately, the end user. This paper will present and discuss the work produced for Interface a collaborative exhibition funded by the Arts Council England and developed by Innovate – Centre for Creative Industries, University of Plymouth and the Devon Guild of Craftsmen and other associated applications. Interface is currently on tour throughout the UK. The makers contributing to the exhibition combine a broad range of material processing knowledge and creative abilities with the intelligent application of computer software and digital manufacturing methods.
More recently, there has been increasing debate on how computer based development tools are being filtered into the making process and how the activity could become changed or enhanced by it. The paper documents the creative process of making, tracing the range of experiments and individual strategies developed by each practitioner to integrate the precision associated with digital technologies into the fluidity and changeability of materials within the studio or workshop context.
By extending the practice and theory of contemporary crafts with a focus on the nature of physical objects and the processes by which they are produced, the exhibited work seeks to speculate on the differing theoretical positions one can locate within digital making, raising issues pertinent to future directions and definitions of the Crafts in the 21st Century.
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Dans son exposé, l'auteur présente 'Interface', une exposition en Grande-Bretagne qui est le produit d'une collaboration entre diverses universités et organismes gouvernementaux. Il documente le processus de création d'un nombre d'artisans, et les stratégies qu'ils utilisent pour intégrer la technologie numérique dans leur travail.