PLEASE DON'T ASK ME

The intertwining of digital futures and craft is unavoidable but how do we want that future to evolve? I think that we need to have more conceptual and exploratory work that challenges the preconceptions and possibilities so that craft doesn’t get swallowed up in the rush and excitement of modern fabrication methods. How can we value and learn from traditional craft skills and reinterpret them to create a new crafted future?

‘Please don’t ask’ is a digital and craft hybrid sculpture crafted by hand and illuminated by LED. It reimagines common pixel signage in cotton thread through the use of filet crochet which is created by forming open and closed lace squares. Textile is used to interpret binary code and to create a labour intensive version of modern day digital announcements.

The first question usually asked about my work is ‘how long did it take you?’ Can the value of craft only be measured by the length of time it took to make? It seems easier to evaluate by number than to look at our actual relationship with the hand made. This work is an effort to get the obvious question out of the way first so that we can start to think about the more complicated issues about our digital future and the place that craft has in it.

2021