Blogs
Festival of Making – July 2023
hiCraft’s Festival of Making workshop in Blackburn explored IoT through physical making:
Crafting connections: imagining and making your Internet of Things with hiCraft.
Held in July, the Festival of Making provided an opportunity for people to imagine and think about
Workbook 1: October 2021 – November 2022
Compiled on completion of the Craft investigations in November 2022, Workbook 1 unpacks in detail the hiCraft project progress and outcomes so far. Included is a summary of findings and a plan for our next steps.
View the workbook here.
Nicola Naismith Blog 5: Summary: The Rest Bit
In this final project entry I’m reflecting on the commission territory I have discussed across a series of blogs:
At the beginning of the commission I was thinking about why this research is important – if we are exploring a healthier
Sean Kingsley – hiCraft Reflections – Part 7 (Gold Circuits)
LED circuit
Playing around with very basic circuits. It is comical, but the information for this sort of thing quickly becomes technical – with (justifiable) reference to resistance, current and voltage. It is easy to imagine an LED would fail if
Sean Kingsley – hiCraft Reflections – Part 6 (Puzzle Jugs)
Projects are being thought of by using their titles, which helps to keep the thinking through them distinct. The next few blogs will separate those projects out for clarity, however when the hiCraft sketchbook is seen, it demonstrates that varying
Nicola Naismith Blog 4: Consistency and inconsistency
Care was fully in my mind when the hiCraft team journeyed to Norwich in June to visit me in the studio. My thinking had come to a natural pause so it was a good time for discussion. Laying out the
Sean Kingsley – hiCraft Reflections – Part 5
This is a brief overview of some of the explorations in hiCraft.There are independent projects emerging, captured by sketchbook, camera conversations and reflections.
“How does it feel to be made”
This still has legs…
“Anstruther clay”
“Ladies curling rink”
As the clay dries out, thought
Sean Kingsley – hiCraft reflections – Part 4
Friday the 13th of May saw Phil talk us through our Arduino Opla kits. The hardware is very tidy and allows us to get onto the code sooner than wiring separate Arduino processors, breadboards and components, as I had been
Rachael Colley Blog 2: What can design do?
The Design Museum’s Waste Age exhibition asked, ‘What can design do?’, presenting a broad range of designs which aim to be sustainable, following circular design principles as opposed to the current ‘take, make, waste’ model of consumption. Designers of IoT are encouraged to
Jayne Blog 2: Everything Has a Voice
Through the Ongoingness project concepts of dialogicality have been extremely useful and they feel relevant, albeit for a different reason/context, in our hiCraft project. The ideas of dialogicality come from lliterary theorist Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s work – a great book in
Jayne Blog 1: Blackwork Embroidery and Circuits
To set off using making as a place and mechanism for thinking I started to stitch some blackwork embroidery patterns as they felt very relatable to early circuitry imagery and ideas of structure, repetition and digital materiality.
The first two images
Nicola Naismith Blog 3: Loops
There are loops and then there are loops
The Arduino session was certainly an exploration into tech that was completely new to me. Working with components and coding for the first time was daunting, and I stumbled somewhat with the first
Nicola Naismith Blog 2: Care and Caring
During the Covid-19 Pandemic a wide range of books were published which focused on care. The Care Manifesto (Care Collective) explores the politics of care – and crucially, the need for an interdependence of care – and asserts how currently
Nicola Naismith Blog 1: Exploring the Territory
Being one of the commissioned artists for the hiCraft research project is both exciting and challenging. I’m questioning how I can bring my experience and knowledge as a hand and digital maker, researcher and collaborator to contribute to an ambition
Phil Heslop – Response to Sean’s Blog Part 3
Sean’s Code Questions
Hi Sean, here are some responses (I won’t say answers!) to your notes:
“if #include then no semi-colon” – yes, this is a quirk of the programming language syntax. Anything with a # is an instruction to the compiler
Sean Kingsley – hiCraft Thoughts – Part 3
The old story of Robert the Bruce seeing a spider fail and fail again while building his web was recalled when this fellow dropped down above my head as I grappled with electronics and code. My problems may well not
Sean Kingsley – Thoughts from the hiCraft launch event – Part 2
There are a few threads being sewn at the same time. Getting started on the IoT equivalent of the potter’s wheel; Education in IoT; and Teaching pottery:
Metaphorically, start on the potters wheel by going through the exercises in the Arduino
Sean Kingsley – Thoughts from the hiCraft launch event – Part 1
Mini dramas, excitement and anticipation are always part of travelling, accommodation, eating, meeting new people and embarking on new work. Personal interests are reflected in some of the photos taken – combined here in the splendid railway hotel (Royal Station
Rachael Colley – Thoughts from the hiCraft launch event
As stated during Justin’s introduction to the hiCraft research project, “craft practices often draw on concepts of subjectivity, personalisation/bespokeness, localism, embodiment, provenance, authenticity, and care”. Several of these key aspects were explored through the craft commission I created for Craftspace’s national touring exhibition We Are