Fluidity in Craft and
Authenticity
Sarah Kettley
Nottingham Trent University | sarah.kettley@ntu.ac.uk
[ 1] TEI Proceedings of
the 4th International
Conference on Tangible,
Embedded and
Embodied Interfaces,
Media Lab, MIT,
Cambridge, MA, 2010.
[ 2] Cochrane, G.
“What is Craft?”
craftscotland. http://
www.craftscotland.org/
whatiscraft.html/
being made about the cultural
status of the “C-word” in relation to Design or to Art (and to
be fair, these can sometimes
appear to be the only two issues
exercising the craft community
itself). Instead, people are putting out intelligent questions
and propositions, and a hand
is extending from HCI to Craft
as a discipline with something
important to contribute to
emerging creative practices.
Given this interest, I’d like to
offer my thoughts on the subject
and outline how craft itself is
undergoing a significant shift
from an activity defined by local
praxis, to a form of knowledge
and engagement with the world.
September + October 2010
[ 3] Craft in the
Twenty-First Century
(2003), Edinburgh,
UK; Challenging Craft
(2004), Aberdeen,
UK; New Craft,
Future Voices (2007),
Dundee, UK; NeoCraft:
Modernity and the
Crafts (2008), Canada;
Crafticulation (2008),
Helsinki, Finland.
interactions
Increasingly, tangible interaction design is orienting itself
toward craft as something
distinct from design. There
are efforts to translate, or
reproduce, the materiality of
spaces in other media; calls for
a coherent approach to experience and evaluation; and NSF
funding aimed at making the
concepts and needs of HCI
accessible to graphical and traditional crafts communities.
In addition, researchers from
Indiana University are teasing
out a method for designing tangibles, starting with metaphors
from nature. They speak of
this as a designerly approach,
emphasizing an “old” view
of design—crafting artifacts
through critical engagement
with form and material, and
foregrounding curiosity on the
part of the designer [ 1]. Such
intangible qualities as meaning, authenticity, commitment,
engagement, and passion are
becoming central to contemporary design, qualities that
arguably not only characterize
but also constitute craft, and
which can be found discussed
throughout craft literature.
With a background in Craft
and working in HCI, interaction
design, and tangibles, this presents an exciting opportunity.
Craft is no longer being defined
simplistically as handmade
goods; nor are assumptions
i think i Know What Craft is—
Why Do you Have to tell Me?
First of all, it is important to
own up to what looks like a
serious problem with craft:
It doesn’t seem able to define
itself. You can pick up any piece
of the literature and find a
quote to this effect. It is possible
to write almost any definitive
statement about craft, and for
the opposite position to simultaneously hold true:
“Craft can be a confusing word.
When you use it there is a strong
possibility that the other person is
thinking about something quite dif-
ferent to you. One person imagines
handmade one-off pieces while
another thinks of stenciled furniture
and stamps. And it doesn’t get any
easier when you get beyond the word
craft to a specific discipline such as
glass or textiles, as again everyone
will imagine something different.”
