The Campanologists Teacup: A Creative Collaboration of Technology and Making

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Author
Murphy, Ingrid
Pigott, Jon
Date
2016Acceptance date
2015
Type
Article
Publisher
Plymouth College of Art
ISSN
2042-1664
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This paper explores intersections of technology, making and material process in ways that go beyond the current
paradigm of digital fabrication techniques and craft practice, through an artists report on a collaborative project
that brings together ceramics and electronics.
The Camponologists Teacup (2015) is a ceramic and kinetic sound art work made by Ingrid Murphy and Jon
pigott, exhibited as part of the Sensorial Object exhibition in Cardiff Craft in the Bay and subsequently selected
for exhibition at the forthcoming British Ceramics Biennial. The work explores the material quality of ceramic form
through its sonic qualities by way of a custom made electromechanical system that bounces a ball around the
inside of ceramic gramophone horns. The kinetic activity is triggered by the audience tapping a small teacup in a
manor that traditionally would have been used to investigate the quality and integrity of a piece of ceramics. The
result is an interactive and kinetic sound piece that produces a subtle and intriguing soundscape from a series of
unusual and striking ceramic forms.
The work brings together two distinct approaches to technology and craft. Murphy’s practice combines traditional
ceramic processes with new technologies and digital approaches that enable both virtual and physical outcomes.
Murphy research explores how technological constructs influence how we conceive, produce and percieve the
crafted object. Pigott’s work has most recently focussed on sound producing electromechanical sculpture. Often
kinetic in nature his work typically contains elements of hand made and hand assembled electronics and
electro-mechanics, while a core value always remains the sounding quality of material form. This paper explores
the context for this type of practice as partly informed by the handmade electronics and technological
intervention that emerged from creative activities of the1960s, a time when practices such as kinetic sculpture
and experimental music were influenced by developments in systems engineering and burgeoning digital
technologies.
The Camponologists Teacup represents an original culmination of two identifiable and distinct strands which
form the intersection of the maker movement, those of traditional craft skills, combined with hand made
electronics. This paper explores these two fields of making and the ways in which they relate to and reflect on
each other within the collaborative project. This presents possible alternative ways of thinking about the bringing
together of technology and material process outside of the established, commercially available black boxes of
digital fabrication.
Journal/conference proceeding
Making Futures Journal;
Citation
Pigott,J. Murphy, I. (2016) 'The Campanologists Teacup: A Creative Collaboration of Technology and Making', Making Futures Journal Vol 4. http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/2015/journal-home/current-journal/
URI
http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/2015/journal-home/current-journal/http://hdl.handle.net/10369/9450
Description
This paper was presented at Making Futures conference at Mount Edgcumbe House on the River Tamar opposite the City of Plymouth, Devon, UK in September 2015, available at http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/2015/journal-home/current-journal/
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
Collections
- Artistic Research [180]
- FabCre8 [30]
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