Lucy Hardcastle

Our relationship with the surfaces we interact with have changed. Our appreciation of the materials we encounter everyday have become flawed, misaligned. We are no longer connected to the craftsman behind the materials we encounter, material becoming the invisible interface, a thing that gets in the way, rather than something to be experienced within itself.

In the way we engage with the output of the craftsman, so may we learn about process and engagement through the material they generate. Through touch and engagement with material it is possible to expand our knowledge, and feel part of the process. An important transaction occurs, we develop sensory and conscious knowledge based on the tactile experience with those materials.

Craftsmanship and materials imply a sense of engagement, both mentally and physically in the process of creation. This is certainly true when we think about glass, and what that comes to represent to us as a society at large. We are currently experiencing a loss of this engagement through our fundamentally flawed relationship with glass as a portal for consumption.

Crafting from digital to real, and exploring the tension and fusion of the two modes of experience are a way to anchor a form of material consciousness. The universal design of glass and it’s flatness does not represent all the types of data that we can acquire knowledge from. There is a tension that exists only as a sensation of understanding an object’s tactility between the user and the screen.