Personal anchor points in the development of craft/digital research practice

Jayne Wallace reflects on key people, projects and influences that have enabled her to develop her craft and research practice as a digital jeweller. She describes a selection of projects that relate to the body’s extended agency through jewellery objects and how she attempts to reconcile bringing jewellery and digital technologies together whilst avoiding making gadgets or objects that have very limited lifespans due to our preconceived ideas of what digital devices are. She discusses some of the dynamics of how she works in hybrid teams with technologists to create the work and highlights key philosophical positionings that underpin the development of work into areas concerned with supporting personhood, sense of self and well-being. Central to the work is the aim of making pieces that have positive personal meanings for the people she makes them with and for, and she finally reflects on how co-creativity has become very important in her collaborations with technologists and also with participants in the research process.