Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Ayako Takase
Second Advisor
Joy Ko
Third Advisor
Josh Glenn
Abstract
This thesis probes the discourse around the increasing use of advanced digital tools in art and design, and articulates a paradoxical stance that these tools are re-illuminating a set of old ideas - ideas that have been preserved in a lineage of craft movements, historically perceived as anti-technological, nostalgic, or backwards-looking.
Over the last two decades, the use of generative and computational tools in art and design has evolved from a niche, experimental activity to a fully-fledged epochal movement, rising across all disciplines from architecture and graphic design to film and illustration.
Craft, which has always found its definition unstable in the wake of technological change, will once again be measured in relation to our newest tools. In this case, however, we find a deep congeniality with ideas which have been understood as central to craft: the importance of creative agency, the nature of skill, the cultural implications of variety and beauty, and the social relationships between a craftsperson and their community.
Through a series of experimental everyday domestic objects, each a unique output from a generative system, or one of one of a kind, I suggest that this technification of the creative process is an evolution of craft, and highlight the ongoing and increasing relevance of these old ideas to the contemporary landscape of artists, designers, craftspeople, and creatives of all types. In an accompanying collection of essays, I explore this point of view and speculate on the social and cultural possibilities and tensions it manifests.
Recommended Citation
Rishe, Dominic, "One of One of a Kind" (2024). Masters Theses. 1333.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1333
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