Skip to content
1981
Volume 14, Issue 1-2
  • ISSN: 2397-9704
  • E-ISSN: 2397-9712

Abstract

What does ironing have in common with learning to build a digital world? This photo essay explores the nature of learning and unlearning through the juxtaposition of skills, specifically ironing, a competency acquired for the most part through unconscious absorption, vs. creating in a digital medium where our learning was much more self-conscious. In learning to build and programme in Unreal Engine (UE5), a game engine capable of enabling a virtual reality (VR) experience, we learned, once again, what it means to learn. The photo essay is written in a lyrical style to encompass both the prosaic and poetic ways that we engaged with a project titled, Craft & The Digital Turn (CDT). By using VR as a means of data visualization we sought to bring our craft backgrounds together with future trends in digitalization and communication. Through personal narratives and histories, melded with theory and analysis, we hope to record a process that was deeply engaging and extremely challenging for us as practitioners.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada (Award #40624)
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/vcr_00096_3
2025-08-18
2025-12-14
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anon. (2022), ‘There are unknown unknowns’, Wikipedia, 6 November, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=There_are_known_knowns&oldid=1120265080. Accessed 10 June 2024.
  2. Bergson, Henri (1929), Matter and Memory, London: Allen & Unwin.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Boling, Elizabeth (2017), Studio Teaching in Higher Education: Selected Design Cases, Abingdon: Routledge, https://ezproxy.saskpolytech.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&site=ehost-live&scope=site&AN=1249123. Accessed 15 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Chan, Arlene (2011), The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle, Toronto: Dundurn Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Deleuze, Gilles (1988), Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque, Paris: Éditions de Minuit.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Evans, Claire L. (2018), Broad Band the Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, New York: Penguin.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Franklin, Ursula M. (2004), The Real World of Technology, Toronto: House of Anansi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Grosz, Elizabeth (2005), Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Groth, Camilla (2017), ‘Making sense through hands: Design and craft practice analysed as embodied cognition’, doctoral thesis, Espoo: Aalto University, https://www.academia.edu/31502564/Doctoral_dissertation_Groth_pdf. Accessed 9 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Harrod, Tanya (2007), ‘Otherwise unobtainable: The applied arts and the politics and poetics of digital technology’, in S. Alfoldy (ed.), Neocraft: Modernity and the Crafts, Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, pp. 22539.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Koskinen, Anniina, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, Pirita and Hakkarainen, Kai (2015), ‘Interaction and embodiment in craft teaching’, Techne Series-Research in Sloyd Education and Craft Science A, 22:1, pp. 5972, https://doaj.org/article/ee14790094864167910f311d3c47a906. Accessed 10 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Larned, Emily (n.d.), ‘ILSSA: Impractical labor in service of the speculative arts’, Impactical Labor, https://impractical-labor.org/. Accessed 20 November 2022.
  13. LeBel, Sabine (2012), ‘Wasting the future: The technological sublime, communications technologies, and e-waste’, Communication +1, 1:1, pp. 119, https://doi.org/10.7275/R5Z31WJK.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Leblanc, Dave (2021), ‘Little cottages tell the history of Toronto’s working class’, The Globe and Mail, 7 September, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/article-little-cottages-tell-the-history-of-torontos-working-class/. Accessed 1 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Lee, Wai-Ma (1984), ‘Dance no more: Chinese hand laundries in Toronto’, Polyphony: Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 6:1, pp. 3234.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Linke, Christine, Prommer, Elizabeth and Wegener, Claudia (2020), ‘Gender representations on YouTube: The exclusion of female diversity’, M/C Journal, 23:6, https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2728.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Marshall, Justin (2021), ‘Craft-oriented hybrid analogue/digital practices; their values and our future relations with technology’, in Q. Saad (ed.), Futuring Craft: 17&18 Sep 2021: Conference Proceedings, Perth, 17–18 September, Perth: Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, pp. 32844, https://indianoceancrafttriennial.com/read-the-papers-presented-at-the-iota21-conference/. Accessed 28 May 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Metcalf, Bruce (1993), ‘Replacing the myth of modernism’, American Craft, 1:53, pp. 4047.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Nitsche, Michael, Quitmeyer, Andrew, Farina, Kate, Zwaan, Samuel and Nam, Hye Yeon (2014), ‘Teaching digital craft’, CHI ‘14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Toronto, 26 April–1 May, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 71930.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Redpat (2015), ‘Occasional Toronto: Last of its kind?’, Occasional Toronto, 7 October, http://occasionaltoronto.blogspot.com/2015/10/last-of-its-kind.html. Accessed 28 May 2024.
  21. Reif, Anne, Kneisel, Tim, Schäfer, Markus and Taddicken, Monika (2020), ‘Why are scientific experts perceived as trustworthy? Emotional assessment within TV and YouTube videos’, Media and Communication, 8:1, pp. 191205, https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i1.2536.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Russell, Legacy (2020), Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, London: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Shreeve, Alison, Sims, Ellen and Trowler, Paul (2010), ‘“A kind of exchange”: Learning from art and design teaching’, Higher Education Research & Development, 29:2, pp. 12538, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360903384269.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Smitheram, Miranda (2015), ‘Imagining and imaging future fashion’, Craft Research, 6:2, pp. 24155, https://doi.org/10.1386/crre.6.2.241_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Sullivan, Graeme (2005), Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Ukita, Norimichi and Kanade, Takeo (2012), ‘Reference consistent reconstruction of 3D cloth surface’, Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 116:8, pp. 86981, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2012.04.001.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Utz, Sonja and Wolfers, Lara N. (2020), ‘How-to videos on YouTube: The role of the instructor’, Information, Communication & Society, 25:7, pp. 95974, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2020.1804984.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Wettre, Åsa (1995), Old Swedish Quilts, Loveland, CO: Interweave Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. White, Ryan, Forsyth, David and Vasanth, Jai (2006), Capturing Real Folds in Cloth, Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2006-10, Berkeley, CA: University of California at Berkeley.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Zhang, Shellie (n.d.), ‘Yuling Chen: 43.654°N 79.385°W’, Xpace Cultural Centre, https://www.xpace.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/External-Space_Yuling-Chen-1.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Jennings, Ken (2013), ‘Meet Canada’s Mount Thor: The world’s steepest, tallest cliff’, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 June, https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-06-10/mount-thor-canada-maphead-ken-jennings. Accessed 7 June 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Springgay, Stephanie, Irwin, Rita L. and Kind, Sylvia Wilson (2005), ‘A/r/tography as living inquiry through art and text’, Qualitative Inquiry, 11:6, pp. 897912, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405280696.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/vcr_00096_3
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/vcr_00096_3
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): craft; digitality; embodiment; pedagogy; skill-building; VR
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test