Position Paper, Jelle Peter

Jelle Peter
Position Paper Digital Craft
December 7th, 2018

My position of my practice in relation to newer technologies
Digital craft is about man an machine. My working method is to start with a broad vision, in which I zoom into aiming to be critical on my own thoughts and experiments. As a graphic designer I bring structure into chaos, especially when projects tend to remificate. The primary drive in my work is to make things happen. I work impulsive and intuitive and have an interest in emotions and behaviour. Especially with the conception to be in control of this to be able to adjust and steer. My aesthetic preferences tend to concentrate on what I see as important and communicative in design. That can be a well executed design or a good working prototype. I found out that it’s really interesting when outcomes are presented on an exhibition or to a specific audience. From then the work gets a certain value and the ability to speculate. Understanding, undiscovered and the use are keywords wich relate to my approch in the practice.

My opinion is that there are no strict borders. I think that the digital craft practice goes really broad, it can be an insight that you bring to the table or a whole new method or extension. The most interesting part for me is when you can speculate about a certain subjects within a context.

When we are speaking about new technologies, I’m thinking about subjects like cyborgs and how technology will take over humanity in the future. How dependent we already are on technology. I’m also interested in the moment when finally robots will taken over our society. Not really looking forward, but more how that will work out. Because we all know that as we speak people are developing/working on it. Furthermore, I think that the future is when we develop robots with well equipped artificial intelligence and a self-learning system. The value of the self-driven approach is for me that as a designer you can make your own borders within your project. It can be a statement which you make relevent for others. William Morris said at one point that production by machinery was “altogether an evil”. His valid reason was that it would be better for all if individual craftsmanship could be revived, the worker could then produce beautiful objects that exhibited the result of fine craftsmanship, against to the shitty products of mass production. In my opinion we found a kind of solution to this big movement, when working with a 3d printer. Contemporary work fascinates me more and especially works that radiate a questioning experience towards an audience. The drifter [Studio Drift, 2017] is for me the best work in that particle. As a viewer a felt lost and improbable. Also artist like Žilvinas Kempinas [Shown at Action Reaction Exhibition Kunsthal, 2018] who affects the viewer through various senses; visually, aurally and physically by the use of the magentic tape. In his installations he works with objects and materials in a new way to create a new visual image.

Avoiding the digital is my past tense. In a digital world like this it’s becomes more and more important to get familiar with digital technologies as a designer. I feel that in the Digital Craft practice I’m able to work from certain observations in behaviour to a digital outcome. And I strongly believe that in a lot of cases this digital outcome will suits the subject much better. As an example, in the graphic design course I tend to change from direction since I follow Digital Craft. Creating a VR experience with living 3d scanned shapes is something that is not self-evident for me as a designer.