Enticatypes: Exploring how artifacts can entice conversation on craft values in digital making

In this paper we will focus on two bodies of work which used digital design and manufacturing technologies in their inception and production; one produced by an experienced digital maker (Marshall) and the other by a novice maker (Vannucci). We are proposing these sets of works as Pragmatic enticatypes (artifacts that sit between prototypes and provotypes to entice conversation).

We will describe and discuss the outcomes of a workshop where the participants, many of whom were craftspeople and designers, tried through our enticatypes to get under the skin of the dichotomies that can still persist between machine/digital produced and handmade objects. We will exemplify the role our artifacts played in the workshop and the participants’ reflections and discussions raised across, and between, the analogue and the digital in relation to: novelty in contrast to originality, authenticity as a mark of respect for tradition, control as a measure of competence and competence as a measure of skill.

Moreover, as first attempt at enticatypes, we will underline their shortcomings in this workshop in order to discuss how very different craft results, both using a Research through Design approach, could potentially lead an audience to different types of conversations, interactions and outcome. And how a highly hands-on group of participants, such as craftspeople, recognises and interprets different qualities in the same artifacts.