Resisting Alignment: Code and Clay

Abstract

Today thousands of artists, designers, and craftspeople turn to digital fabrication tools to invent and manufacture new forms. They use vector-graphics software to sketch models, laser-cutters to customize parts, and 3D printers to generate prototypes. However, how our experiences of expressivity, skill and value shift with these developments remains under-explored. This paper describes our early engagements with emerging fabrication technologies in the domain of ceramics, one of our oldest and most enduring artistic mediums. In particular, we detail a collaboration with Helen Martino that resulted in the Sound Bowl, a vessel designed to record an audio message through surface undulations, much like a vinyl record. As an example of design as inquiry, we developed the bowl to explore the integration of digital fabrication in ceramics production. In the process, we found new and intriguing tensions in the entanglement of code and clay: contrasting temporal frames, blurred traces of breakage, and coinciding human senses. We discuss implications of these observations on the nature and organization of embodied interaction.