Collaborative craft through digital fabrication and virtual reality

This paper examines the collaborative practice between an analogue and a digital craft practitioner. It aims to illuminate ways in which digital tools can be used to translate handcrafted objects in collaborative craft practice and to address the following questions: 1) What forms of knowing and meaning making evolve in collaborative research through design practice? 2) What does it mean to explore material in Computer Aided Design (CAD) through Virtual Reality (VR)? Originating with a hand-knotted artifact, the study begins with the transformation of an analogue form into digital format using a range of techniques. These activities act as both a review of digital fabrication capabilities and an exploration of new thinking mechanisms offered by this emerging hybrid practice. The study broadens our understanding of the maker’s role within the capabilities and limitations of digital tools. Each iteration of digitally-fabricated objects was documented and reflected upon. This collaborative practice acts as a catalyst for established disciplines within art and design to collide and interact. Outcomes include mapping workflows within digital and analogue material practice, and reflection on how the materials and methods used in digital fabrication have the potential to expand the meanings connected to the things that are produced.