“After the Digital – Re-materialising Digital Ecologies of Craft” presented by Flanagan and Xue

New economies of making in post-disciplinary and post-industrial climates are pushing the traditional boundaries of the craft industries. This article examines recent artistic practices exploring and experimenting at the bleeding edge of art-science-technologies, where artwork is critically crafted, combining digital with physical materials through hybrid forms of hands-on-making. New materials and technologies are being incorporated into contemporary craft and new modes of making are revealed as we witness a move away from modern-craft to an era of post-craftwork. Electronic media sits at the heart of these developments, but in contrast to modernist dematerialisation of art and the dominance of screen essentialism in art production and in daily life, post-craftwork engages with digital technologies in ways that re-materialize data in physical and hybrid spaces and artefacts. The authors draw on new materialism philosophy in consideration of digital material agency, cutting across posthuman, transhuman, and more-than-human paradigms, to examine post-craftwork through examples of six artworks that embody the creative thoughts and insights of their makers, instilling them with social and spiritual value. Re-imagining material conditions and technological futures may offer potential to reconnect culture with nature.