It was incredibly interesting and fulfilling reading recent works from David Jury and Peter Dormer and seeing distinct similarities in tone and ideas to the works of Walter Benjamin and Herbert Read almost 70 years prior. Though Benjamin and Read were more interested in the new found reproduction and thus social degradation of existing artworks, all of these writers embodied the same cautious protection of crafts that they each loved.
As I read further into the 2000's - peaking at Lucy Johnston's Digital Handmade - attitudes became undeniably more liberal towards the embrace of technology and crucially the belief that digital technology can produce auratic, humanistic work. I became aware of a real artistic and social movement that I decided to name Hybrid Practice. I noted that Hybrid Practice was the combination of a precision, mechanical process and a crafted, human 'intervention' of some kind. This deep reading and nailing down of the actual term inspired the practical work that was to come.
The practical side of the project is something I'm very happy with. I began with the idea of producing a 3D printed version of my own hand. Eventually, after trouble sorting the logistics of this venture, I decided the whole thing was missing the vital humanistic intervention, instead relying fully on an incredible digital machine. I then moved onto my next possible production method, the Mimaki plotter / cutter. After my first session using the plotter, It seemed like the perfect production method to synthesise with Hybrid Practice. The plotter follows any computer programmed path to minute detail and in place of the normal scalpel blade, a drawing implement can be added. This addition of a drawing implement was the key to bringing the humanistic element to the process. The simple addition of a pen nib gives any final print the appearance reminiscent of human interaction. The trick works because of the context that the pen has, drawing on the historical connotation between pen and hand. Once the final imagery and patterns were created, the final prints were drawn.
After working out kinks and flaws with initial prints was key to really learning what I see as a real craft. I'd define it as a craft because of the knowledge one had to have of the software, and of the ink-flow and the speed. Ironically, all of this came together to then produce very complex imagery that was incredibly quick and easy to create! This speed of creation in relation to the complex final piece references Lucas Maassen's incredible Brainwave Chair, the design of which was created by a simple blink of the designers eye, this brainwave then translated into the final sofa. Maassen describes the process as a tongue in cheek critique of the contemporary designer's increasingly quick and easy workflow.
The final series of prints reference the three chapters of the dissertation, showing synthesis between the two sides of the project:
- The series embodies an entirely contemporary aesthetic chosen by the designer, not dictated by the process, which is very much rooted in contemporary technology.
- The choice of plotter speed combined with the pen and stock chosen allowed me to enforce mistakes into the prints, showing a designer and producer in charge of their chosen process and not vice versa.
- The final prints are informed by various iterations of Hybrid Practice from across culture, taking in Maassen's critique of a simplified version of 'craft', Relph and Cooper's interaction and intervention of the digital process in their Why Make Sense? project and Valissa Butterworth's conscious decision to leave the marks and scrapes left in the digital processes on her CNC, 3D printed pottery.
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