Imbuing Hand-made Objects with Digital Narratives.

Cerys Alonso, Elizabeth Edwards.

The incorporation of digital technologies within hand made objects is perceived as an incongruous
juxtaposition between new technologies and traditional craft skills. This research examines how sensitive
layering of digital narratives can enhance the hand made, engaging viewers and enabling artifacts to
create their own narrative whilst triggering memories and emotions from within the viewer.
There is an inherent message or story in handmade objects, through the interaction of the maker as well as
the importance attached by the owner. The development of the ‘internet of things’ has permitted digital
communication between objects. Through the integration of digital sensors, hand made objects can
become more than a repository for static memories, instead tracking and responding to the engagement of
the owner thus imbuing an object with the power to ‘record’ its life, enabling it to tell a new story of its
being.

Keywords Memory, Digital, Handmade, Narrative, Senses.

1., Boundaries and Convergence: Where Physical meets Digital

Development in the digital field has expanded rapidly, continually gaining ground, moving into new and
unexplored territories. Digital technologies are moving away from the screen and we are entering the age of
ubiquitous computing. This brings with it new possibilities for engagement. Radio Frequency Identification Tags
(RFID), augmented reality and Network Sensors are among the technologies, which enable objects to attain a
new life. Whilst these developments facilitate potential for both commerce and educational use it raises
challenges and possibilities to traditional making philosophies.

When digital technologies are incorporated within traditional, handmade objects, multiple translations of
experience are transmitted: the tangible, tactile nature of the physical contrasting with the untouchable,
insubstantial character of digital aura. This jarring juxtaposition of media, translating experience differently
could produce incongruence.

Our research primarily questions whether adding the knowledge of the artist digitally to an object, allowing the
purchaser or subsequent viewers to share the experience of manufacture or design, enhanced the item or whether
the static nature of digital capture distracts from the natural layers and multiple interpretations and emotions
imbued by future viewers. This research led to an investigation as to the issues of narrative within handmade
objects, classifying it into three types; the narrative of the creator, the ongoing associative narratives generated
by emotional connection with the object and finally the ongoing ‘life’ of the object itself created through
interaction and engagement with people, other objects and its environment. The inter-relationship between
multiple hand made objects and their relationship to their environment can be described and stored as a digital
aura or ‘memory.’ This story of the object’s ‘life’ can be used to elicit further memories or emotional responses
from the owner or viewer.
2.1., Translations in Media.

“All media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience in new forms.” [1] Traditionally
technologies have mediated direct experience, translating the experience into various sensory outputs.
Each mediation promotes particular sensory inputs while curtailing others. Mediations may have an intrinsic
association with particular senses some extending the role of vision, whilst diminishing the influence of aural
input; others engage kinesthetic awareness at the expense of the visual. Jewellery may signify emotions such as
love or loss as well as communicating messages designed to be read by society, for example a person’s marital
status or position in a community. Jewellery mediates through particular and often long established ways. The
digital medium translates the world and experience in new ways. As these media converge, the ways in which
jewellery communicates may extend and in doing so broaden or deepen the capacity for emotional response.

The interfaces that are mediating our digital experiences are currently still overt and the experience of use can
seem forced and uncomfortable. Digital devices such as mp3 players, Bluetooth earpieces and mobile phones
whilst designed to interact with the body are still used in a conscious and slightly strained way. The juxtaposition
of embedding hand-crafted objects with digital technologies can exacerbate this. Phone screens and other mobile
devices, through their mediation act a potential interruption of experience of and connection with an object.
These can act as a barrier to experience, causing differences that engage conflict or disrupt each other.
Omnipresent computing will change our physical and emotional relationship to the digital medium. As devices
become smaller and are embedded within the environment there will be less overt physical obstructions to our
direct experience and instead of dominating space, computing will melt into the background of our
consciousness. Over time the conspicuousness of technologies change, culminating in invisibility for those that
become familiar and commonplace. As they merge into the background they become part of the “fabric of
everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” [2]

The creation of IPv6, the 128-bit Internet Protocol address, has the power to make ubiquitous computing a
reality. Objects that have not previously been networked can be allocated an individual address making digital
communication between objects possible. As ‘the internet of things’ becomes commonplace, a greater degree of
fluidity and compatibility may be experienced by users of digitally enhanced everyday objects.

Marc Weiser, who devised the term ‘ubiquitous computing’, compared the transformation to the early days of
electricity. “Hundreds of computers in a room could seem intimidating at first, just as hundreds of volts coursing
through the wires in the wall once did. But like the wires in the walls, these hundreds of computers will come to
be invisible to common awareness.” [3]
As a consequence, people will become fluent with this form of media ‘translation’ and will be able to extend
senses and emotions accordingly.
The term ‘embodied virtuality’ means that every object can have a memory store that, shadow-like, remains with
the object through life. However, the nature of the object onto which the digital aura is layered must be
considered.

2.2., The Importance of Narrative and ‘Hand-Made’.

There is an inherent message or story in handmade objects, through the interaction of the maker, the certain
degree of imperfection and the significance placed on the object by the buyer. This significance placed on
objects by the owner has been evidenced unmistakably through Mah Rana’s body of research ‘Meanings and
Attachments’ [4] This ‘layering’ of story or memory carries on through the life of the item. Human touch stores
memories. The repetition of use and the memories of events, places and people attached to them are all capable
of triggering emotions in the owner or viewer. The question as to whether this continual layering of ‘memories’
and the open interpretation that the viewer can place on the object would be hampered by the capturing of these
stories in a tangible form, digital or otherwise, is a difficult one to answer.

Handmade objects, such as jewellery, often use codes which are almost communal, including form, colour,
material and the position that the piece is worn, however more discrete codes are used such as engraved initials
that can be ‘read’ and understood by the intended but are otherwise private. It would also be possible to store
this kind of coded data digitally but the sense of uncertainty or vulnerability could deter storage of such personal
content. There are issues around the security of digital data stored within an object. Although wearable
computers can maintain privacy, there is the possibility that data that forms part of a ubiquitous computing
network could leak into the environment. This could change the memories that people are willing to share.
Consciously deciding to record a memory intervenes in a process that is traditionally involuntary. However,
these considerations of privacy may also be evident in the degree of detail and the position of engraved messages
on jewellery

2.3., Relative Value and the Varied Nature of Memories

The desire for people to use portable objects, such as jewellery, to transport memories, has been, in some part,
adopted by technology. The use of functional objects such as mobile phones and iPods allow the owner to
capture, store and transport ‘memories’ in a way that was previously impossible. The volume of memories held
by an iPod, or similar may exceed that of memories associated with hand-crafted objects.

As these devices become a container of memory and an extension of self the perception of these objects is
changing. This is illustrated by the desire to engrave iPods with personal messages, in a way that was formerly
reserved for precious objects such as watches, lockets and wedding rings. This phenomenon sees digital devices,
items once viewed as relatively disposable, being imbued with emotional importance. Thus disparate values are
beginning to merge. The semiotic reading of digital media contrasts with the interpretation that is associated with
traditional jewellery. Jewellery is perceived as both timeless and also as a marker of time with value correlating
to increasing age. This is in direct comparison to the rapid evolution and subsequent obsolesce of micro chips.

Data stored digitally is sometimes fixed, sometimes editable, but there has often been a conscious decision to
alter, edit, add to or otherwise manipulate the store. This is unlike the natural layering of narrative that is integral
to hand made items. From the marks left by the maker to the scratches and dents acquired through use, hand
made pieces tell a story which can be read through the shifting, inconstant (and sometimes inaccurate) aspects of
human memory and emotion.

The ability to store memories digitally, within objects, allows a different kind of connection to artifacts in our
lives. If offers the opportunity to share different kinds of stories.
Embedding sensory technologies within objects can record the life of an item for example its response to
movement, proximity to other objects or to temperature change through use (from handling by the owner). Some
definitions characterise these recordings as memories and although machines do not think in order to attach
significance, programmed conditions when met might identify ‘significant’ events.
However there is the possibility to use this information to recapture the pleasure of serendipitous, ephemeral
encounters and events by triggering audio and visual ‘memories’.

There is now the potential for objects to gather data in an arbitrary, structured or reactive way as shown through
the use of sensors and networked technologies. In this way objects can hold an accumulation of data, which
could be classed as the object’s memories. In some circumstances they act as a proxy memory for a user,
establishing a memory of a place or the relationship of an object to an environment. This virtual picture can
trigger emotions in people reading the object’s life.

3., Conclusion

Storing emotional triggers embedded digitally can allow the recognition of the multiple layers, which already
exist but are hidden. They make memories apparent. Although this can tarnish some of the magic of the
remembrance it may also make stories more tangible and can therefore preserve experiences.
The research by Dr Jayne Wallace explores this digital layering of narrative within jewellery. Her recent
‘Personhood project’ explores dementia and the construction of memory through the inclusion of RFID readers
and tags within hand made objects to act as memory triggers for dementia sufferers.
Wallace utilises the value of craft in an attempt to “recast what we assume digital artefacts are, what they can be,
how long they last in our lives, trying to circumvent this quick cycle of consumption – I’m trying to make things
outlast that.” [5]
On the issue of the apparent polarity between hand crafted jewellery and digital technologies Wallace states that:
“Jewellery is based on a completely different way of behaving and feeling about an object than the directions
digital technology takes us… I’m trying to shake up those assumptions, and to extend the palette of a jeweller.
This is not a sinister material to work in.” [6]

The incorporation of digital technologies with in traditional hand made objects does not have to be an
incongruent juxtaposition of media. Digital narratives interwoven within an object offer a new perspective on the
piece. Allowing us to connect to the maker through access to their memories of the making of the piece. We can
trigger emotions through memories incorporated and shared digitally. Collective memories can be added and an
ongoing interactive story may be developed. This is particularly true in the third type of narrative as defined at
the start. By imbuing an object with the power to ‘record’ its life, desirable hand crafted objects with embedded
sensors can digitally record their ownership. Enabling a hand-made object to tell a new story of its being, a new
narrative, whilst interacting with the viewer.

The exponential growth of digital technologies has resulted in an expansion of their function into new areas.
This diversification may be viewed as an encroachment onto the traditional language that is layered onto hand
made objects, however evolution of technologies is so readily absorbed into culture that the juxtaposition will
soften and boundaries will merge. Technology will not replace the essence of ‘handmade’ but has the power to
enhance it and keep it current and alive.

References

[1] McLuhan. M. (1999) Understanding Media: the extensions of Man. (p.57) Cambridge, MA. The MIT Press

[2,3] Weiser, M. (1991), The Computer for the 21st Century. (p.1, p.19) Scientific American, Inc.,
[4]Rana, M. 2007 An Individual and Collective Journey. Available at
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/research/rae-2008/mah-rana/portfolio_outcome04.cfm [Accessed 10th
February 2010]

[5,6] Wallace. J. Aid Memoire. Crafts Magazine, Crafts Council. Available at

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/latest-issue/feature/2 [Accessed 25th May 2010]