Research Questions
How can contemporary manufacturing tools increase practitioner agency in craft practices?
By the inclusion of Digital Fabrication tools, workflows and processes, this research asks how the agency of practitioners working with a craft vernacular can be extended, hybridised, and evolved.
How can digital fabrication be used to restore, rebuild and evolve knowledge within the letterpress craft?
By adding contemporary tools and approaches, this research seeks to provoke how can knowledge exchange, pivotal to tradition and heritage, be enhanced in new and innovative ways
Research Aims & Objectives
The aim of this research is to develop a framework to understand the integration of hyperlocal digital fabrication when embedded within an established craft practice, specifically Letterpress printmaking.
To meet this aim, the three core objectives of this research revolve around:
- Fieldwork – To determine the influences of digital fabrication tools in Letterpress craft practice; to observe and understand how these new tools may be adopted, integrated, or hacked by practitioners, and to support new material and aesthetic directions to augment and build upon current practices.
- Framework Building – To develop a framework to understand new aesthetics and materiality when digital tools are hybridised into the craft practice, evolving and reframing what is understood to constitute “letterpress” in the 21st century.
- Knowledge Exchange – To determine what is made possible for ICH surrounding a craft practice that digital fabrication techniques can allow in developing alternative modes of knowledge transfer and preservation – specifically within the situated practice of practitioners.