Craft In The Age Of Digital Fabrication Presented by FAB9 x General Assembly | Melbourne

About this event

Craft is an art, trade or occupation, requiring special skills, typically manual skills involving patience and dexterity. Often, what defines craft is that throughout the process of making, the final piece is ‘at risk’, that a certain outcome is not guaranteed. The Internet and the advent of digital fabrication technologies have reimagined how we make things by changing our relationship to production, through computer aided design and additive and subtractive manufacturing. These computer numerical control processes, at least on the surface, seem at odds with the definition of craft, as they are usually automated and digitised, and their advantage is that the final outcome is known. Hans Chang, the founder and CEO of FAB9, Melbourne’s newest high-tech makerspace will chat to a panel of contemporary makers, on the vanguard, who are integrating new technologies in their making and will discuss with them:

• What does it mean to be a craftsperson, in the age of digital fabrication?
• How has digital fabrication tools and techniques changed your making process?
• What are some advantages and disadvantages of hand craft vs digital techniques?
• Finding your voice and your content marketing why
• Does the tools and techniques alter your design process and / or your material selection?
• What are some of the opportunities that new tools and techniques offer?
• What are some of the ways to do digital flip flop and how can computer aided design used to to enhance the hand-made artifacts?
• How can digital production technologies be challenged and pushed to facilitate the production of more meaningful, desirable and ethical objects?