Contribution short abstract:

Although usually presented as opposites, what happens if we take craft and technology seriously in the same light? This paper investigates viewing technology as craft and discusses what can happen to embodied processes when technology and craft are brought together during the act of creation.

Contribution long abstract:

The creation of crafted objects is nowadays often seen as opposite to technological processes such as computing. Where as one is embodied, material, and traditional; the other is mechanical, impersonal, and abstract. This viewpoint, however, stands in contrast to theoretical and historical links between craft and technology, where women were employed in computing positions due to their craft skills. This similarity extends to the similar processes behind crafting, especially where machinery is involved (for example, Jacquard’s loom and Babbage’s Analytical Engine).

Ethnographic data shows that some textile crafters are afraid of what technology may take away from the embodied, traditional nature of their craft. However, this paper investigates what happens when we embrace the similarities between textile crafting and technology. Further, this paper looks at what can happen when we take seriously working with technology as craft, viewing processes of coding and circuitry as crafts in their own right. This is brought together using ethnographic data collected working with people developing and using technological modifications for electronic knitting machines, weaving the traditional fabric in a new light.