Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Dundee
Unpicking the Digital (Four digital lockets Exhibited at: Momentum, Craft in the Bay Gallery, Cardiff, 10/9 -6/11/2011; University of Hertfordshire, 16/11/2012- 26/1/2013; CraftCube:Research; Solo exhibition, DMY International-Design Festival Berlin June 2010; Assemble, London June 2010; Worksop Library 20/9/- 4/10/2010; Sage-Gateshead, 10/-20/10/2013; Anchor Points, Solo Exhibition, Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland. 10/3/–22/5/2012)
Output comprises four silver, digital-lockets (all house digital screens, two are connected to small digital cameras). A key focus in both Design and Human-Computer Interaction disciplines is the drive for more human-centred digital technology applications and artifacts to synergize more meaningfully within our lives. This research asserts that the digital we experience through common interactions with digital artefacts has a series of properties or characteristics that we learn to expect – all are points on a spectrum of digital materiality, which is currently unevenly populated. The digital-lockets serve to elaborate concepts within a productive framework mapping out qualities of digital technologies. Through the production of each locket I have taken a particular property in turn, interrogated and subverted it to: firstly offer examples of what atypically characteristic digital devices that are more analogous to human experience could be, secondly illustrate a more holistic framework of qualities of the digital and thirdly reveal the potential for Design and Human-Computer Interaction of a more varied digital landscape.
The research contributes to the Craft and Design discourses around engagement with materials to offer a more nuanced understanding of the digital as a material and to Human-Computer Interaction discourses related to the design of human-centred technologies and associated artefacts. The research provides the first examples of digital lockets and a contribution to the development of digital craft, interaction design and digital production in conceptual and practical ways through a framework of qualities, accompanied by the lockets as examples and cases in point to help designers think through the design of the digital in unobvious ways.
The framework and lockets have been disseminated through three exhibitions: one solo internationally touring exhibition with the Crafts Council, one solo exhibition with Shetland Arts and one nationally touring exhibition with 7 internationally leading digital artists and designers.
