Postdigital Artisans: Craftsmanship With a New Aesthetic in Fashion, Art, Design and Architecture

Digital technology now mediates much of our interaction with the world, and a vast majority of the images that we absorb daily come through a screen. The digital comes with its own aesthetic framework that cannot help but colour our experience of the world, and change our expectations of the objects that surround us. As the digital becomes ever more pervasive however, there is also a return to physical experiences that technology cannot satisfy. This is true across sectors, from immersive theatre to vinyl records, and although digital will undoubtedly dominate our future, there are pockets of resistance. This book will look at contemporary artisans who are deeply influenced by the digital world in which we live, but who reject processes such as 3D printing as a final output. Inspired by the internet and a screen-based aesthetic, they choose to craft things by hand, rendering a postdigital mindset in tactile materials, such as metal, glass and wood. It represents a return to the physical in the digital age.