recent Response to series, the artist depicted tweets from major corporations like Skittles and Tic Tac as they scrambled to distance themselves from hateful, political speech. Using the crafted language of both woven tapestries and handmade picket signs, the artist reframes corporate guilt as activist action. The disconnect—between the tweets and actual ←31 | 32→activism—is made poignant by the careful handicraft of the object in juxtaposition to the carefully crafted “public relations” response. In a rare, self-reflexive moment, we can see the digital-handicraft practice struggle with the nuances of its efficacy, and the opportunities for critique that may be made available to artists like Mattes.
Moving forward, effective digital-craftivism must consider accessibility and labor first, seeking to offer activism from multiple (material and dematerialized) positions. In contemplating the (im)material labor behind the digital and the handmade, activists must consider the production of their techne, materials, and environments. While their activism might not necessarily address this (the Pussyhat Project (n.d.) founders say little about sourcing yarn), considering labor can deepen our understanding of an activist cause. Activists utilizing these technologies incorporate criticality into their activism at multiple points in the process of making and resisting. As production is made transparent, new avenues of criticality emerge through the interdisciplinary use of technology, material, time, and effort.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
As a practice that demonstrates improved accessibility and utilizes various tactile modalities, digital-handicraft invites criticality within the making process. The activist potential of this position makes craft more easily dematerialized, shared, and accessible, thus expanding the possible reach and potency of a craftivist project. A digital-handmade practice considers labor as a key component of cultural production immaterial or otherwise. In considering the invisible labor of workers behind technology and materials, the digital-handicraft practice is inherently collaborative and decenters the maker as the sole producer of culture. Moreover, the role of the hand of the maker within craft production is likely to transform with the increased use of haptic technology in the hands of both viewers and makers.
We put forward that the digital-handicraft, a hybridized field of making, emerges from considering touch; examining touch in both discourses expands the potential of interdisciplinary art, new pedagogical models, and alternative modes of organizing and resisting. Through discovering how haptic technologies let us touch digital objects, we clarified that these prosthetics deepen the continuous interaction space between physical and virtual arenas, resisting apparent binaries. We continue to envision haptic engagement as conventional material for craft production, where themes of accessibility, pedagogy, and authenticity remain at the fore. As craft goes digital, so too does the virtual emerge as crafted, highlighting the potential for new ways of making, doing, and organizing material culture.
←32 | 33→
REFERENCES
Adamson, G. (2013). Thinking through craft. New York: Bloomsbury.
Adamson, G. (Ed.). (2010). The craft reader (English ed.). New York: Berg Publishers.
Allahyari, M., & Rourke, D. (2017). The 3D additivist cookbook. Amsterdam, NL: Institute of Network Cultures.
Austin, J. L., & Warnock, G. J. (1962/2010). Sense and sensibilia (Repr). London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Baumstark, M. C. (2016). Craftivist clay: Resistance and activism in contemporary ceramics (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Berkeley, G. (1709). An essay towards a new theory of vision. D. R. Wilkins (Ed.). Retrieved https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/Vision/1709A/Vision.pdf
Bert, G. (2016). La Bestia /The Beast [woven cotton tapestry with an embedded QR code]. Collection of the Artist, Los Angeles, CA.
Bratich, J. (2010). The digital touch: Craft-work as immaterial labor and ontological accumulation. Ephemera, 10(3/4), 303–318. Retrieved from http://www.ephemerajournal.org/issue-archive
Chisholm, R. (1957). Perceiving: A philosophical study. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Elo, M. (2012). Digital finger: Beyond phenomenological figures of touch. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 4(1), 14982. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v4i0.14982
Fisher, J. (1997). Relational sense: Towards a haptic aesthetics. Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine, 87, 4–11. Retrieved from http://www.david-howes.com/senses/Fisher.htm
Gerhardt, T. (2009). Mud Tub [tangible interface]. TomGerhardt.com. Retrieved from http://tomgerhardt.com/mudtub.
Greenhalgh, P. (2002). The persistence of craft. New Jersey, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Greer, B. (2011). Craftivist history. In M. E. Buszek (Ed.), Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary Art (pp. 175–183). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Guthrie, G. (2013, April 7). Where are the women?. Retrieved from https://makezine.com/2013/04/07/where-are-the-women
Heller, L., & Millerson, D. (2017). All hands on tech: Craft, pedagogy and the digital challenge [Powerpoint slides]. Lecture presented at the Canadian Craft Biennial, Burlington, ON.
Howes, P., & Laughlin, Z. (2012). Material matters: New materials in design. London, UK: Black Dog Publishing.
Infinite Dreams. (2017). Let’s create! Pottery lite (Version 1.63) [Computer application software]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.idreams.potterylite&hl=en
Kant, I. (1781/1998). The critique of pure reason. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kortum, P. (2008). HCI beyond the GUI: Design for haptic, speech, olfactory, and other nontraditional interfaces. Burlington, UK: Elsevier.
Langlands, A. (2018). Craeft:An inquiry into the origins and true meaning of traditional crafts (First American ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Lovelace, A. K., & Toole, B. A. (1998). Ada, the enchantress of numbers: A selection from the letters of Lord Byron’s daughter and her description of the first computer (2nd ed.). Mill Valley, CA: Strawberry Press.
Marquardt, N., Jota, R., Greenberg, S., & Jorge, J. A. (2011). The continuous interaction space: Interaction techniques unifying touch and gesture on and above a digital surface. In P. Campos, N. Graham, J. Jorge, N. Nunes, P. Palanque, & M. Winckler (Eds.), Human-Computer Interaction—INTERACT 2011 (pp. 461–476). Berlin: Springer.
←33 | 34→
Mattes, K. (2018). Response to the access Hollywood tapes [handwoven cotton and wool, pine]. Property of the artist. Los Angeles, CA. Response to Donald Trump Jr.’s Comments About Syrian Refugees [handwoven cotton and wool, pine]. Property of the artist. Los Angeles, CA.
Mazanti, L. (2011). Super-objects: Craft as an aesthetic position. In Buszek, M. E. (Ed.), Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art (pp. 59–82). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mazza,
