Beyond Facture

Abstract

Material arts, craft-based practices, digital processes and technological constructs influence, support and affect each other in multiple possible ways, each with their own historical lineage and associated aspirations or concerns. Just as throughout history, we cannot ignore the pace and influence of technological progress, Paul Valery’s comments of 1936 are equally pertinent today: “In all arts there is a physical component that cannot continue to be considered and treated in the same way as before, no longer can it escape the effects of modern knowledge and modern practice”. (1) For Valery it was the advance of the mechanical age … for us it is the advance of the digital age that is changing the physical components of our craft, quite literally.