Annie Warburton speaks about craftsmanship 4.0

We wondered about it with Anouk Wipprecht who, mix his mix of fashion sociology, engineering skills and collaborative processes typical of a maker, outlined for us the profile of the Digital-Era craftsmen.

For the second event held in collaboration with Innovation and Craft Society, Meet the Media Guru looks at the context in which New Craftsmen operate and does so, as in its traditional approach, from an international perspective. The name is Annie Warburton, art director of Crafts Council, the British institute supporting, studying and promoting the work of new craftsmen in the United Kingdom by means of exhibitions, shows, training programmes and research projects. Warburton will be at Meet the Media Guru on 24 October (7.30 pm) for a public meeting at Triennale. Register here.

Starting from her experience at the helm of the Crafts Council, Warburton will guide us at the discovery of craftsmanship in the Digital Era. Never before has the creative and artistic processing of an “original” product – be it a piece of furniture, a jewel, a dress, to go back to Wipprecht’s beloved Fashion Tech – integrated, if not amalgamated, into a production process whose main characteristic is more and more digital fabrication. Robotics, Internet of Things, laser cut, 3D printing are words that are now full part of craftsmen 4.0’s lingo. How can these new tools produce Contemporary Craft?

Adam Blencowe & Marine Duroselle | Talent Spot from Crafts Magazine on Vimeo.

Warburton will present British success case histories while outlining processes and possible measures that could work in Milan and in Italy. We’ll try to understand how to match art excellence that Made in Italy crafts can express with the “environment” in which these skills come to exist. The challenge is massive: adopting the production resources brought about by state-of-the-art technology, embodying them inDigital-era creative languages and collaborative methods.

The meeting with Annie Warburton is held in collaboration with the Innovation and Craft Society, an observatory of high-tech manufacturing founded by Banca IFIS in collaboration with Stefano Micelli and Triennale di Milano.