DigitalCraftMinor2015

Minor Daily Planning

MONDAY

• WORK!

TUESDAY

• WORK!

WEDNESDAY

• WORK!

THURSDAY

• WORK!

FRIDAY

• WORK!

Museum Of Fantastic Forgeries

Authourship & Authenticity Project: Museum Of Fantastic Forgeries

Theme

Fantastic Forgeries presents alternate histories of Dutch material culture through the research and evaluation of existing artefacts – and their appropriation, transformation and remaking. Fantastic Forgeries uses historical crafted objects as a departure point to reflect on the status and practice of craft in our contemporary society. The objects will be used as tools to examine traditional ways of making as well as a formal, tactile, and decorative inspiration to compare when stretching the boundaries of (artisanal/digital) fabrication.

In this quarter you will explore into the rich past of Dutch material culture though the Applied Arts and Design collection of the museum Boijmans van Beuningen, or pre-industrial collections of your choosing. You will choose an artefact that speaks to you through its form, function, and its surrounding folklore. You will experiment with various and scanning, modelling and production technologies in order to support the crafting of your own perfect copy of your chosen piece. The idea is to make your replica or 'fake' as convincing as possible by reproducing with detail, before breaking it open into a series of iterations that alter the form and content of the artefact. Can new rituals come about by removing the form out of its original context? Can more flamboyant objects arise by imagining and inventing the aristocrats that would use them?

Mentoring/Tutorial Sessions

Date & Time	Classes	TODO
Sept 15	Tools & Tech / Fantastic Forgeries Project Launch
Sept 22	Tools & Tech (morning)/ Practice & Research (afternoon)	Presenting Museum "Heist" and Pitching FF Project
Sept 29	Tools & Tech / Practice
Oct 02	Research (morning)	Defining Personal Craft Comments
Oct 06	Tools & Tech / Practice
Oct 08	Research (morning)	Sign up for time-slot /Structuring 1000 word essay
Oct 13	Tools & Tech / Practice / Research
Oct 27	Tools & Tech	Hand in 1000 word essay
Oct 30	Museum of Fantastic Forgeries (Final Presentation)
Oct 31	Open Day Exhibition

Deliverables

1. A copy of your chosen (pre-industrial) artefact crafted from a different medium;
2. A well-fabricated contemporary transformations based on your chosen artefact;
3. A polished project wiki page;
4. A 1000 word statement defining where your specific 'craft' lies in relation newer technologies (Uploaded to the wiki);
5. An exhibition presentation, research visualisation, and oral presentation.

Written Assignment

+/- 1000 words answering #5. Please use 1-4 to jump start your writing process.

1. What is your craft? (define your discipline, method or approach)
2. What are the tools and media of your craft?
3. What are the borders of this practice? (what new media technologies have arisen / what is its future of the field))
4. Connect to a historical discourse and give concrete examples of contemporary practitioners
5. Define your position of your practice in relation to newer technologies.

Evaluation

The Museum of Fantastic Forgeries presentation is your first integrated assessment and you will receive a final quarter mark for both Research and Practice . You will have 6 minutes to present, and 6 minutes of questions/defence. 2 of your 6 minutes should dedicated towards the (historical) context of your chosen artefact.

In your presentation you are required to:

1. Critically reflect on your process, pointing to the knowledge and skills learned;
2. Connect your projects to practices of both craft and technology;
3. Frame your research and practice based results within the context of the assignment;
4. Defend the relevance and potential of your research and practice based results.

Criteria

1. The student is knowledgeable of the historical context of their project's themes, and has positioned/critically reflected upon new contexts in relation to the minor (i.e. craft, fabrication, authorship, appropriation, experimentation and relation to personal practice/signature).
2. The student has defined a clear, profound, and independent method of research, which is visible in the design/artistic process.
3. The student has a rigorous approach to experimentation, which is visually presented as a coherent process.
4. The student has conceptualised and executed high-level, innovative, and original works.
5. The student has taken advantage of the technical instruction and technologies/tools offered, and has demonstrated a willingness to push their skills further.
6. The student has a motivated choice and proper defence for a specific a technology in their execution of their final assignment.

Context

How can you integrate Digital Craft into your personal practice?

The notion of a ‘tool’ in contemporary artistic practices is much wider than a simple hand-held implement. Tools can move material as well as ideas. Tools can fabricate as well as disseminate. Knowing one’s tools (how they are defined, designed, and put in effect) not only gives one agency, but often becomes the crux of one’s artistic practice. This holds particularly true for digital craftsmen.

The current range and access to new digital instruments — from dozens of desktop CNC technologies that can make almost anything to hundreds of sensors that can measure pretty much everything — have given rise to a new wave of artist-built machines. Moreover, recent critical practices that break away from the more commercial and industrial (affirmative) applications have brought a new spectrum of objects that instrumentalise design’s potential as a discursive tool.

Whether milling-out matter or carving-out meaning, this project asks you to both envision and build new tools for your practice. In this quarter you will define, design, and put into effect a new tool or medium that will strive for two main aims: it will carry your traces and signature as maker, as well as apply/reflect on the technological possibilities of our time.

Main Assignment

Develop a personal tool that transforms your craft in a meaningful way. This tool needs to be relevant to your personal practice and the bigger context of your craft.

Starting Points

Focus on a particular element of your artistic process and become an expert on it : research and experiment deep and wide.

Define what your craft is and what it’s key characteristics are. Which ones are problematic? Which ones are interesting...

Look critically at the process of making in your craft and explore the possible impacts tools can have on your work.

Tools can be many things: they can be physical tools the way we usually think about them, but they can also be conceptual, abstract: systems, spaces, software, ... basically anything that has an impact on your creation process.

Sensor Demo

Assignment

Select a sensor to make a cool demo with. You can use tutorials and copy other people’s work, but you have to a/ personalise the demo and b/ be able to explain us how it works.

Please don’t make something boring: make something that puzzles us / scares us / makes us laugh / anything…

Selected Sensors

• Jermaine: a motion sensor
• Sanne: humidity sensor
• Lizet: tilt sensor
• Lucas: accelerometer
• Ciska: RFID
• Tim: proximity
• Michelle: fingerprint (camera based?)
• Joeke : PIR sensor
• Sjoerd: touch sensor
• Dionne: capacitive touch sensor
• Denise: Motion Sensor
• Robin Hendriks: heartbeat sensor/ blood
• Remy Konings: capacitive / heat sensor
• Thom Trouwborst: Capacitive touch sensor

Suggested Reading

Hertzian Tales — Anthony Dunne

Speculative Everything — Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

Making is Connecting — David Gauntlett

The Craft Reader — Glenn Adamson

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — Walter Benjamin

The Meme Machine — Susan Blackmore

What Technology Wants — Kevin Kelly

Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand — Malcolm McCullough

The Design of Everyday Things — Don Norman

Emotional Design — Don Norman

Designing Interactions — Bill Moggridge

Cognitive Surplus — Clay Shirky

Here Comes Everybody — Clay Shirky

The Long Tail — Chris Anderson

Free — Chris Anderson

Free Culture — Lawrence Lessig

Deliverables and Deadline

1. Tool of the Trade
   An artefact, a critical tool that transforms your craft in a meaningful way.
2. Working demo
   A prototype with a sensor that is more or less relevant to your chosen theme.
3. Short film about your project
   — A walk through : show how the device works. Show the parts, a visual manual / technical documentation.
   — The device in your practice. Make us believe that it exist, show us how it affects your practice.
   — Larger Cultural implications: how does it affect the greater culture surrounding your practice?
4. Research Document
   A text that goes with the film, an artistic statement.

Everything needs to be finished by the week of January 12th 2016.

Mentoring/Tutorial Sessions & Important Dates

Date & Time	Classes	TODO
Nov 3	Tools & Tech / Tools of the Trade Launch	Introduction Tools of the Trade and Sensor Lottery
Nov 11 10:00-12:00 / 13:00-16:30	Tools of the Trade Pitch / FF grades & feedback	Present the theme you want to work with in class
Nov 17 13:00-16:30	Practice	Sensor demo presentations + further development of Tool of the Trade
Nov 18 9:30-12:30	Tools & Tech	intro in Arduino and microcontrollers
Nov 20 10:00-13:00	Research	Defining Research / Defining Critical Design /Scenario Workshop 1
Nov 24 9:30-12:30 / 13:00-16:30	Tools & Tech / Practice	pondering the possibilities / feedback TotT
Nov 27 10:00-13:00	Research	Scenario Workshop 2 / Sinterklas Surprise
Dec 2nd 13:00-16:30 / 18:00-20:00	Practice / BADASS COMPUTER SKILLZ W/ ROEL	feedback TotT / How to use your computer like a badass
Dec 4 10:00-13:00	Research	Research Feedback / Sinterklas Tools of the Trade Surprise
Dec 8 9:30-12:30 / 13:00-16:30 / 18:00-20:00	Tools & Tech / Practice / BADASS COMPUTER SKILLZ W/ ROEL II	hands-on help with the technical aspects of your project / 1on1 feedback / MORE BADASS SKILLZ
Dec 11 10:00-13:00	Research	Research Feedback / Film feedback
Dec 15 9:30-12:30 / 13:00-16:30 / 18:00-20:00	Tools & Tech / Practice / BADASS COMPUTER SKILLZ W/ ROEL III	hands-on help with the technical aspects of your project / 1on1 feedback / EVEN MORE BADASS SKILLZ
Dec 18 All day (possibly connected with excursion)	Tools of the Trade Review	Research document / film due
Jan 4-8	I'M IN THE WORKSHOP WEEK	no formal class / meetings on request
Jan 14 All Day	Tools of the Trade (Final Presentation)
Jan 15 All Day	DC Exhibition Meeting	Plan exhibition, arrange rentals, produce tables
Jan 21-22	DC Exhibition	Opening evening of 21st / Take down afternoon 22nd

Sinterklas Surprise

Part 1 (Due Dec. 4th)

• Make a small gift or set of gifts that connects with your assignment (think of material samples, tests, something you want to test)
• Place your student nr. email on it (so its not obvious who it is from)
• Wrap it up
• Bring it on the 4th

Part 2 (Due Dec. 5th or 6th)

• Receive your random Sinterklas surprise
• unbox-it in front of your webcam
• discribe everything you see, you experience, and try to guess what it it for or what its potential could be.
• send the film back to the email address in the package.