Hand Thought

Artist: Justin Marshall

Marshall’s ongoing ‘Hand Thought’ project investigates the aesthetic opportunities that computer numerically controlled (CNC) technologies can hold for the craftsperson/maker. His recent work has developed and explored a visual language that results from integrating analogue and digital strategies and techniques, including capturing and evidencing the haptic. Working in this hybrid way has provided him with a foundation for developing a ‘Digital Craft Ethos’ that situates his practice in an embodied and Pragmatic conceptualisation of technology, as distinct from more Instrumental design engineering characterisations.

The exhibition will include hybrid analogue/digital 3D and 2D wood and paper-based works that deploy ‘traditional’ craft materials and tools (i.e. green wood, (chain)saw, axe, adze, chisel, mallet, spoke shave, paper, paint brush and pen) alongside digital 3D scanning, CNC machinery and robotics to create ambiguous works that are neither quite handmade or machine manufactured. In addition to the physical work, he will exhibit short film that describes the motivation, theoretical context and processes involved.