Ceciel Zhong
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
UROP Fellowship: Women and Gender
Research Mentor(s): Ron Eglash, PhD
School of Information
Presentation Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 | Session 1 | Presenter: 5
Authors: Ceciel Zhong, Ron Eglash
Abstract
This research examines how to design and improve human-machine collaboration that preserves the creative and hands-on aspects artisans love while enhancing artisanal skill sets, workflow and quality of production with the versatility of the tools that artisans can incorporate. Adinkra symbols are common in Ghanaian art, appearing in various forms of crafts. They are drawn from deep observance and understandings of nature as instruments for connections, and represent different proverbs and aphorisms. However, traditional approaches to produce these crafts are threatened by competition from the speed and mass production from factories that kept value alienated from each other, resulting in the loss of sustainability. Through designing tutorials and prototyping the use of laser cutter, this research seeks to create the bridge to promote human-machine collaboration in the artisanal fabrication process, programming between the user interface in Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDT). Under the hit of pandemic which transitioned the demand into reusable masks, the incorporation of laser cutter also offers its unique versatility in producing the reusable masks aligning with the larger goal that labor value would be circulating in unalienated form.
After translating the automation technologies through using a bottom-up co-evolution, we gather feedback from the artisans and educators of these programs and facilitate scaling up these networks while maintaining control at the grassroots level. The result expects that laser cutter offers unique advantages for artisans in transitioning into mask making and production of a variety of crafts such as Adinkra jewelry, laser bleaching, and eggshell engraving. The use of CSDTs will allow them to create more complex adinkra and be more competitive in the market, while contributing to scale up into production ecosystems that is a better alternative to contemporary industry which has an alienated value circulation. The next steps of this project are to produce and test more tutorials on both the CSDT and the laser cutter to connect the interfaces, gather and analyze feedback from the audiences while summarizing the effectiveness of these programs in order to evaluate their use more comprehensively.
Google Slide Presentation
Presentation Script
Research Disciplines
Engineering
