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Introductory Remarks

Physical Computing and Fabrication in the Arts and Humanities

People often ask us what sort of arts and humanities projects involve physical computing and/or digital fabrication (or "computer numerical control" techniques).

With that in mind, here's a list of related research areas. It's certainly not complete; however, I hope it gives you a sense of where the arts, humanities, physical computing, and fabrication come together.

  • Electronic literature (including the use of physical computing to create bots and interfaces)
  • Infrastructure studies (including "applied inquiry" into how hardware and infrastructure work as well as the politics of infrastructure)
  • Minimal computing (building software/hardware with a dedicated purpose, often with an investment in having it work across material/social conditions where access to infrastructure varies or is limited)
  • Interactive installations (many art installations involve microcontroller platforms to respond to or track audience behaviours)
  • Wearables (most wearable technologies involve physical computing techniques)
  • Surveillance studies (investigating how the The Internet of Things is intertwined with social, cultural, and technical decisions, including decisions about how people are identified and how security operates)
  • Assistive technologies (researching norms around/in technologies + interfaces to then build alternatives, including alternatives by + for people with disabilities)
  • Preservation and restoration (many memory institutions use 3D scanning, modelling, and fabrication to preserve and exhibit 3D objects)
  • Rapid prototyping (as a method, rapid prototyping stresses the iterative development of ideas and things as processes that can be repeatedly shared with interested groups; this impulse works against interests in ideal or universal forms)
  • Prototyping the past (using physical computing and fabrication to remake artifacts that no longer exist or no longer function like they once did)

Some Ways to Frame Physical Computing and Fabrication through Theory

  • The digital is also physical (exceeds the screen or cannot be reduced to smybolic expression).
  • Materiality and design are entangled with discourse (language and its conditions cannot be neatly separated from "technical" work) .
  • Materiality and perception are embodied (to build interfaces and technologies is to frame or organize perception, with assumptions about people's bodies and behaviours).
  • Physical computing and fabrication work across bits and atoms (we should ask how this becomes that, both culturally and materially).
  • Tools are not value neutral (they embody and influence culture, and they are congealed forms of labour).

Please note: These notes have not been edited. Apologies for any typos or mistakes!