ABSTRACT
Crafters today blend age-old techniques such as weaving and pottery with new information and communication technologies such as podcasts, online instructions, and blogs. This intersection of tradition and modernity provides an interesting site for understanding the adoption of new technology. We present a qualitative study of seven knitters introduced to Spyn - a system that enables the association of digitally recorded messages with physical locations on knit fabric. We gave knitters Spyn in order to elicit their reflections on their craft practices and learn from their interactions with material, people, and technology. While creating artifacts for friends and loved ones, knitters expanded the creative and communicative potential of their craftwork: knitters envisioned travel journals in knitted potholders and sung lullabies in knitted hats. We describe how these unusual craft activities provide a useful lens onto contemporary technological appropriation.
- Atkinson P. (ed.). Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design, In Journal of Design History, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1--10, 2006.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Attfield, J. Wild Things. The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Berg, Oxford-New York, 2000.Google Scholar
- Bean, J., Rosner, D. Learning from IKEA Hacking: "I'm Not One to Decoupage a Tabletop and Call It a Day." In Proc. CHI EA '09, pp. 419--422, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Blauvelt, G., Wrensch, T., and Eisenberg, M. Integrating craft materials and computation. In Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Creativity&Cognition. C&C '99. ACM, New York, NY, pp. 50--56, 1999. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bonanni, L., Parkes, A., and Ishii, H. Future craft: how digital media is transforming product design. In Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '08. ACM, New York, NY, pp.2553--2564, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Buechley, L., Elumeze, N., and Eisenberg, M. 2006. Electronic/computational textiles and children's crafts. In Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on interaction Design and Children. IDC '06. ACM, New York, NY, pp. 49--56, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Craft and Hobby Association, www.hobby.org/eduevents_teach.html (verified on July 28, 2009).Google Scholar
- Dormer, P. The language and practical philosophy of craft. In The Culture of Craft, P. Dormer (ed.). Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1997.Google Scholar
- Dormer P. The Meaning of Modern Design - Towards the Twenty-first Century. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.Google Scholar
- Eglash, R. Appropriating Technology: An Introduction, in R. Eglash (ed.) Appropriating Technology, pp.vii--xxi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.Google Scholar
- EyeFi http://www.eye.fi/ (verified on July 28, 2009).Google Scholar
- Forlizzi, J. How robotic products become social products: an ethnographic study of cleaning in the home.Proceedings of HRI 2007, ACM Press, 2007. Remaking the Way we Make Things. New York: North Point Press, 2002. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gell, A. Art and Agency. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.Google Scholar
- Hutchins, E. Material anchors for conceptual blends. In Journal of Pragmatics, 37, pp. 1555--1577, 2005.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hutchinson, H., Mackay, W., et al. Technology Probes: Inspiring Design for and with Families, Proceedings of CHI 2003, ACM Press, 17--24, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Johnson, J. S., Hawley, J. Technology's impact on creative traditions: Pieceful co-existence in quilting. In Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 22(1/2), pp. 69--78, 2004.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Keane, W. Signs are Not the Garb of Meaning: On the Social Analysis of Material Things. In Materiality, D. Miller (ed.). Duke University Press, pp. 182--205, 2006.Google Scholar
- Klemmer, S. R., Graham, J., Wolff, G. J., and Landay, J. A. 2003. Books with voices: paper transcripts as a physical interface to oral histories. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '03. ACM, New York, NY, 89--96, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Küchler, S. Technological Materiality: Beyond the Dualist Paradigm. In Journal of Theory, Culture&Society, 25, 101--120, 2008.Google Scholar
- Levine, F. and Heimerl, C. Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.Google Scholar
- Macdonald, A. L. No Idle Hands; The Social History of American Knitting. New York: Ballentine Books, 1988.Google Scholar
- McCullough, M. Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand, MIT Press, 1998. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Miller, D. Material Culture and Mass Consumption, New York: Blackwell, 1987.Google Scholar
- Minahan, S.,&Cox, J. W. Stitch' n bitch - cyherferninism, a third place and the new materiality. Journal of Material Culture, 12(1), pp. 5--21, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Prigoda, E., McKenzie, P. J. Purls of wisdom: A collectivist study of human information behaviour in a public library knitting group. In Journal of Documentation, 63(1), pp.90--114, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Pye, D. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Herbert Press, London, 1995.Google Scholar
- Resnick, M., Berg, R., and Eisenberg, M. Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation. Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 7--30, 2000.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rosner, D. K., Ryokai, K. Spyn: Augmenting Knitting to Support Storytelling and Reflection. In. Proceedings of Ubicomp '08., pp.340--349, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Schofield-Tomschin, S. and Littrell, M. A. Textile handcraft guild participation: a conduit to successful aging. In Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 41--51, 2001.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sennett, R. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
- Silverstone, R., E. Hirsch and D. Morley. Information and Communication Technologies and the Moral Economy of the Household. In Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Silverstone R. and Hirsch E. (eds), pp.115--31. London: Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
- Silverstone, R. and L. Haddon. Design and the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and Everyday Life. In Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies. Mansell R. and Silverstone R. (eds). pp. 44--74. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
- Stoller, D. Stich'nBitch: A Knitter's Handbook. New York: Workman Publishing, 2003.Google Scholar
- Torrey, C., Churchill, E., McDonald, D. Learning How: The Search for Craft Knowledge on the Internet. In Proceedings of CHI'09: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: pp.1371--1381, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Torrey, C., D. W. McDonald, B. N. Schilit and S. Bly. How-To Pages: Informal Systems of Expertise Sharing. In Proc. Proceedings of the Tenth European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work '07. Springer, pp. 391--410, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Turner-Rahman, G. Parallel Practices and the Dialectics of Open Creative Production. Journal of Design History.: 22(4), pp.371--386, 2008.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wakkary, R., and Maestri, L. The resourcefulness of everyday design. In Proceedings of ACM Creativity and Cognition 2007, pp. 163--172. New York: ACM Press, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Yeh, R., Liao, C., Klemmer, S. R., Guimbretière, F., Lee, B., Kakaradov, B., Stamberger, J., Paepcke, A. ButterflyNet: A Mobile Capture and Access System for Field Biology Research. In the Proceedings of CHI 2006: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: pp. 571--80, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Reflections on craft: probing the creative process of everyday knitters
Recommendations
Mediated crafts: digital practices around creative handwork
CHI EA '10: CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIn this submission, I discuss my design research and fieldwork investigating mediated crafts' - digital practices around creative handwork. Specifically, I study how creating and sharing digital information around knitting or crochet activity affects ...
Spyn: augmenting the creative and communicative potential of craft
CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWe present data collected from a field study of 12 needle-crafters introduced to Spyn-mobile phone software that associates digital records (audio/visual media, text, and geographic data) with locations on fabric. We observed leisure needle-crafters use ...
Hand e-craft: an investigation into hand use in digital creative practice
C&C '09: Proceedings of the seventh ACM conference on Creativity and cognitionThe hands play a vital role in everyday creativity and are our primary interface with the world. This paper focuses on hand use in creative practice and presents case study research that illuminates the ways in which the hands inform creative processes ...
Comments