Decoding Crafts: the digital transmission of tacit knowledge and material expertise

Abstract

How can one tackle the study of know-how? Skill and tacit knowledge are determined by a range of factors such as the use, scarcity and cost of materials, the human interaction with tools and objects, the salience of techniques and knowledge to place, and the sense of provenance and tradition that defines intangible cultural heritage.

How do we decode these complexities for sustainable future proof disciplines? Designing and building historically accurate materials, replicating forming techniques and use of tools, along with archival exploration of the world and context in which these historical experiments were developed, allow us to unlock these steps, and may help us to reconstitute tacit dimensions of present and past practices, from which hybrid practices, combining tacit knowledge of centuries of material expertise with innovations such as additive manufacturing, are essential. The acquisition of Material Intelligence (Adamson, G, 2018) is essential to grounding intangible cultural knowledge towards a future of digitally enhanced crafts, were crafts person and machine work together.

Traditionally, research in craft production focused on the materials and techniques required to form objects, the associated gestures and their transmission were considered anthropology. Gesture Knowledge (Siburn, H, O. 1995), demands the incorporation of another layer of knowledge to encourage machine learning between crafts person and co-bots, resulting in the preservation and transmission of expertise.
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have become the de facto custodians for traditions of skilled artisanship, whilst the Heritage Craft industries face a potential decline of skills in the face of economic and technological developments. Consequently, the educational institution which has become the home of the more traditional craft practices and a laboratory for the experimental and innovative combination of these traditional technologies with the tools and methods of industry 5.0. This crafts ecosystem is fragile. Educational departments across Europe are run by a small group of experts, with a tiny and dedicated workforce keeping hundreds of years of local savoir-faire alive. There is a need to make access to specialist forms of material knowledge open and fit for the purpose of transmission, to record and elucidate embodied and tacit knowledge, usually gained through experience and repetition, with the intention to valorise and sustain craft knowledge and practice into the future.
This paper explores these factors whilst focusing on ceramics, it proposes scalable, transferable methodologies across other material led disciplines, building on the extensive mapping of craft techniques developed within the Erasmus+ Decoding Ceramics research. Decoding Ceramics articulates the imperative to save expert knowledge and valorise traditions of skilled artisanship across the world for a sustainable future discipline. Decoding Ceramics is a new network and open educational resource that maps ceramic knowledge across makers studios, workshops, manufacturers, research centres and universities. It assesses the salience of practice to place, builds a visual and oral record of specialist processes and techniques, leveraging digital technologies to decode tacit knowledge and effectively share this knowledge across the teaching and learning network to ensure ceramic practices are relevant and accessible to future learners, teachers, craftspeople, and enthusiasts.