DigitalCraftMinor2015
Contents
- 1 Minor Daily Planning
- 2 Museum Of Fantastic Forgeries
- 3 Tools of The Trade 2015
- 4 Context
- 5 Main Assignment
- 6 Sensor Demo
- 7 Suggested Reading
- 8 Deliverables and Deadline
- 9 Mentoring/Tutorial Sessions & Important Dates
- 10 Sinterklas Surprise
- 11 Story Board Assignment
- 12 Exhibition Digital Craft 2015
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
- A copy of your chosen (pre-industrial) artefact crafted from a different medium;
- A well-fabricated contemporary transformations based on your chosen artefact;
- A polished project wiki page;
- A 1000 word statement defining where your specific 'craft' lies in relation newer technologies (Uploaded to the wiki);
- An exhibition presentation, research visualisation, and oral presentation.
Written Assignment
+/- 1000 words answering #5. Please use 1-4 to jump start your writing process.
- What is your craft? (define your discipline, method or approach)
- What are the tools and media of your craft?
- What are the borders of this practice? (what new media technologies have arisen / what is its future of the field))
- Connect to a historical discourse and give concrete examples of contemporary practitioners
- 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:
- Critically reflect on your process, pointing to the knowledge and skills learned;
- Connect your projects to practices of both craft and technology;
- Frame your research and practice based results within the context of the assignment;
- Defend the relevance and potential of your research and practice based results.
Criteria
- 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).
- The student has defined a clear, profound, and independent method of research, which is visible in the design/artistic process.
- The student has a rigorous approach to experimentation, which is visually presented as a coherent process.
- The student has conceptualised and executed high-level, innovative, and original works.
- The student has taken advantage of the technical instruction and technologies/tools offered, and has demonstrated a willingness to push their skills further.
- The student has a motivated choice and proper defence for a specific a technology in their execution of their final assignment.
Sign up for time-slot
Tools of The Trade 2015
Tools of the Trade Context/Deliverables
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
- Tool of the Trade
An artefact, a critical tool that transforms your craft in a meaningful way. - Working demo
A prototype with a sensor that is more or less relevant to your chosen theme. - 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? - 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.
Story Board Assignment
Present day Walkthough
You have been asked to give a workshop to a group of emerging practitioners based on your tool. To begin, you give a short walkthrough of your tool. What it does, how it was made, and why you made it.
Contrafactual Past
Cultural historians have found a series of sketchbooks dating from 1867-1912 with a large section of sketched and notes that seem eerily close to the ‘tool’ you have made. This short film is a dialogue between two creators who never met, but coincidentally were working with the same same intentions. Who was this inventor, what were they trying to realise at their time, and in what way did this differ from your work.
Contrafactual/Speculative Future
Your original “Tool of the Trade” project has existed for 25-30 years. A reputable cultural institution has produced a film celebrating your mid-career focusing on three exemplary works that followed and were heavily inspired by the object or theme of your ‘Tool'. What were these works? Storyboard from a third-person
Exhibition Digital Craft 2015
Exhibition Themes
Kan iedereen achter zijn naam zetten wat hij/zij nodig heeft voor donderdag, doe dit snel, dan kan ik alles reserveren!
Denk aan: lampen, schotten, sokkels, tafels, beamer, computer schermen etc.
Bar Benodigdheden voor de bar: 2 tafels, schotten, doek/kleed,
Fantastic Forgeries
Lizet 1x sokkel
Arthur (third year)
Lucas: beamer, beamer-scherm, audioboxen, mac mini
Tim (Tools of the Trade): 1x Tafel (liefst zwart, zo een als bij de presentatie), 1-2x spotjes als die er zijn.
Ciska
Christper
Felt It
Lizet 1x tafel, 1 appelscherm,
Sanne
Dionne: three sokkels, screen, wall, arduino
Joeke (Fantastic Forgeries): lage sokkel of tafel, spotjes (?)
Michelle: Tafel, mini-mac of iets waarop ik filmpje kan spelen (heb zelf geen laptop), koptelefoon/boxen, spotje, plek bij de muur om dingen op te hangen
Work With Me
Robin (forks)
Christopher
Thom: Kopieer apparaat, kleine werktafel, muur (om eventueel wat dingen op te kunnen hangen)
The Criminals: (some of us dont want it to be presented, but just in case): table, big black table cloth
New Ritual / Habits
Joeke (Tools of the Trade): 3x computer, tafel, schot, spotjes(?)
Robin
3rd years
Real virtuality
Lucas: Rift, Windows PC, sokkel, bank, audio verleng kabel, headset
Jermaine - pilgrim: 2x sokkel, pc screen, Good windows computer with unreal engine installed, oculus rift version 2, computer mouse but a xbox controller is also possible.
3rd years