Blame the Tools: Crafty Robots, Well-behaved Implements and Disobedient Devices
There has been a long-standing recognition in the arts, humanities, and the social sciences, of the importance of tools and implements, and the ways in which they are used to create, transform and enhance objects. The character of these tools – the ways in which tools are handled, the skills and practices that underpin and enable their use and application – has received less attention. Yet it is the character of the tool and its embodied use, that become critical in the creation of – and our encounter with – objects and artefacts.

Together with practitioners and academics from across disciplines, this symposium invites makers, curators, crafters, designers, historians, artists, collectors, architects, storytellers, users and social scientists to share understandings of the tool from multiple viewpoints.

The symposium will address the following questions:

How might digital technologies create new affinities with traditional tools and craft practices, and provide distinctive new ways of creating and encountering material objects?

What is the importance of imagination and adaptation in the use of traditional and non-traditional tools?

How does tool use contribute towards structures and practices of co-making and social agency?

And what part does it play in circular economy?

The symposium is convened by Dr Jason Cleverly and Professor Adrian Friend.

Project partner: King's College London.

Design identity: Workform (http://www.work-form.co.uk/)