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Developments in post-industrial manufacturing systems and the implications for craft and sustainability

This is a 50:50 collaboration with Dr. J Marshall. This text discusses how developments in digital production technologies, in concert with advances in digital communication and networking, transform manufacture, business structures, market economies and, ultimately, social structure. The capabilities and possibilities of digital technologies are illustrated through examples of design practice and two practice-based research projects undertaken by the authors: Marshall’s ‘Automake’ and Bunnell’s ‘Autochina’. These examples are used as a basis to questioning the role of craft in new modes of production which integrate sustainable practices and Information Communication Technologies.

The chapter is developed from a peer-reviewed conference paper by Bunnell & Marshall (2008), ‘Characterisations of Craft in Sustainable Digital Making Scenarios’, in proceedings of Making Futures: the craft in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas’, Vol. 1.ISSN 2042-1664. This paper is referenced in Schwarz, M & Yair, K (2010), Making Value: craft & the economic and social contribution of makers, UK Crafts Council, ISBN-10 1903713226 and the 2011 UK Crafts Council research briefing, ‘Crafting Capital: new technologies, new economies’.

‘Autochina’ was cited as exemplifying a significant new business model for the Crafts sector by Ed Vaissey, Minister for Culture at ‘Assemble’, the Crafts Council’s 2012 Annual Conference, RIBA.

This research has provided the foundations for Bunnell’s present Autonomatic project ‘Supercrafted: distributed, localised production.’ BT’s Superfast Cornwall Labs and ERDF, 2012 – 2014 have funded this project to develop creative and economically beneficial applications of the internet for use by craft business in remote locations with a focus on Superfast Broadband.

www.automake.co.uk

www.autochina.me.uk

http://www.assemble.org.uk/