Reflections on craft

Subscribe (Full Service)


	Search: The ACM Digital Library The Guide

	Feedback

Reflections on craft: probing the creative process of everyday knitters

Full text

Pdf (1.18 MB)

Source

Creativity and Cognition archive
Proceeding of the seventh ACM conference on Creativity and cognition table of contents

Berkeley, California, USA

SESSION: Craft & art II table of contents

Pages 195-204

Year of Publication: 2009

ISBN:978-1-60558-865-0

Authors

Daniela K. Rosner	University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Kimiko Ryokai	University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Sponsor

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

Bibliometrics

Downloads (6 Weeks): 20, Downloads (12 Months): 20, Citation Count: 0

Additional Information:

abstract references index terms

Tools and Actions:	Request Permissions Review this Article Save this Article to a Binder Display Formats: BibTeX EndNote ACM Ref

DOI Bookmark:	Use this link to bookmark this Article: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1640233.1640264 What is a DOI?

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.

REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

	1	Atkinson P. (ed.). Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design, In Journal of Design History , vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1--10, 2006.
	2	Attfield, J. Wild Things. The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Berg, Oxford-New York, 2000.
	3	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.
	4	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.
	5	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.
	6	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.
	7	Craft and Hobby Association, www.hobby.org/eduevents_teach.html (verified on July 28, 2009).
	8	Dormer, P. The language and practical philosophy of craft. In The Culture of Craft, P. Dormer (ed.). Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1997.
	9	Dormer P. The Meaning of Modern Design - Towards the Twenty-first Century. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.
	10	Eglash, R. Appropriating Technology: An Introduction, in R. Eglash (ed.) Appropriating Technology, pp.vii--xxi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
	11	EyeFi http://www.eye.fi/ (verified on July 28, 2009).
	12	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.
	13	Gell, A. Art and Agency. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
	14	Hutchins, E. Material anchors for conceptual blends. In Journal of Pragmatics, 37, pp. 1555--1577, 2005.
	15	Hutchinson, H., Mackay, W., et al. Technology Probes: Inspiring Design for and with Families, Proceedings of CHI 2003, ACM Press, 17--24, 2003.
	16	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.
	17	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.
	18	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.
	19	Küchler, S. Technological Materiality: Beyond the Dualist Paradigm. In Journal of Theory, Culture & Society, 25, 101--120, 2008.
	20	Levine, F. and Heimerl, C. Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.
	21	Macdonald, A. L. No Idle Hands; The Social History of American Knitting. New York: Ballentine Books, 1988.
	22	McCullough, M. Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand, MIT Press, 1998.
	23	Miller, D. Material Culture and Mass Consumption, New York: Blackwell, 1987.
	24	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.
	25	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.
	26	Pye, D. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Herbert Press, London, 1995.
	27	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.
	28	Rosner, D. K., Ryokai, K. Spyn: Augmenting Knitting to Support Storytelling and Reflection. In. Proceedings of Ubicomp '08., pp.340--349, 2008.
	29	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.
	30	Sennett, R. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008.
	31	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.
	32	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.
	33	Stoller, D. Stich'nBitch: A Knitter's Handbook. New York: Workman Publishing, 2003.
	34	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.
	35	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.
	36	Turner-Rahman, G. Parallel Practices and the Dialectics of Open Creative Production. Journal of Design History.: 22(4), pp.371--386, 2008.
	37	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.
	38	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.