AOK at 4S Conference: Unravelling craft, technology and practical knowledge

Ruth Benschop en Anna Harris organiseren een track op de komende 4S/EASST conferentie: “Science and technology by other means: Exploring collectives, spaces and futures”, Barcelona, 31 August – 3 September 2016.

Craftwork has long been synonymous with handmade, bodily engagements with tools and materials. New, often digital, technologies are currently reconfiguring craftwork in unexpected ways, and these emerging craft-technology practices are opening up new domains for generative material thinking and sensory practical knowledge. This intersection of craft and thought, making and knowing, tradition and innovation is the focus of this session.

This panel invites creative contributions that engage with the re-conceptualisation, re-invention and re-enactment of craft practices in contemporary life, using a broad definition of craft. We specifically call for reflexive collaborative work that brings craftspeople/practitioners/artists and academics/theorists together in dialogue, not necessarily only verbally.

Topics addressed include:

• Alternative sites of craft and knowledge production such as the maker movement, fablabs and artistic research
• Intersections between craft and knowledge economy, in particular cases such as the textile industry
• Cases of sensory knowledge as shaped by/through (digital) technologies
• Changing notions of skilled work and craftsmanship in professional and artistic fields such as architecture, design, medicine and engineering

There are increasingly more hybrid, wild research practices reimagining ways of making, thinking and researching. We especially encourage contributions that utilise innovative methodologies – ethnographic experiments, re-enactments, artistic research or multimodal/multisensory design for example – to address shifts from method to craft. In keeping with this approach, the panel explicitly invites contributions that not only reflect on craft practices but also illustrate them with and for participants in a “hands-on” style. To the audience we encourage thinking along, and yes, bring your knitting!