Arts & Crafts (and iPads): Digital Craft and Political Economy

Abstract

In discussions of craft since the digital revolution in architecture of the past twenty years it is common for an author to situate their position relative to the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars have repeatedly and rightly noticed striking parallels between reactions in design thinking to the industrial revolution and reactions to the digital revolution in architecture. Proponents of various digital schools invoke the likes of William Morris and John Ruskin as historical theoretical foils to visions of craft in the digital age. There is, however, a tendency to overlook or dismiss as naïve the socio-political ambitions that underwrite the better-known aesthetic styles of various craft movements. Revisiting the political economy of movements like the Arts and Crafts and its allies prompts questions about various contemporary formulations of digital craft. Reinterpreting, for example, Ruskin’s prescient critiques of the technological revolution of his time still suggest social, political, and economic implications for handicraft in our own digital age. To define these questions and potentials, this paper will review the historical moral imperative of craft; survey representative attitudes towards craft in several prominent digital schools of thought; and suggest alternative ways of engaging the socio-political possibilities of digital handicraft through architectural drawing with digital tablet computers, such as the iPad.