Instructor: Dr. Emily Brooks
“Enchanted things refers to hybrid physical-digital objects in the real world whose seemingly magical properties imbue them with the aura of enchantment.” – Kari Kraus
This hands-on course offers an introduction to critical making (thinking through prototyping) in digital humanities. The goal of this course is to gain practical takeaways that can be used in research and pedagogy. We will explore a variety of analog and digital technologies including but not limited to letterpress and bookmaking, 3D scanning and printing, vinyl and laser cutters, physical computing and paper circuits. At the end of the week, participants will use the technologies available to create enchanted things.
Highly Recommended
- Laptop
- USB adapter
- Vector software (Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape)
Suggested
- Comfortable walking shoes
- umbrella/raincoat
- Any old t-shirts/fabric items you want to upcycle with screenprinting
- GitHub account
- CodePen account
- Tinkercad account
- Arduino IDE
Brainstorming
- Small drawing/illustration to illuminate
- Single word to letterpress (wood type or metal type)
- Simple design to create with vector/ screenprinting
- 9am Check in & Coffee (Van-Pelt Library 6th floor)
- 10am Welcome
- 10:45am – Morning Session: Introductions + Paper Circuits (Van-Pelt Library 623)
- Noon – Break
- 1:30pm – Afternoon Session 1: Safety Session/Hand Draw with Taylor Caputo (Tangen Hall)
- 3pm – Coffee Break
- 3:30pm-5pm – Afternoon Session 2: Laser-cutting Acrylic/ Chomp Saw with Taylor Caputo (Tangen Hall)
- 5:00pm – Opening Event with Hannah Alpert-Abrams (Van-Pelt Library 6th floor)
- 6:30-7:30pm – Reception
- 9am – Coffee
- 10am – Morning Session: Physical Computing (Van-Pelt Library 623)
- Noon – Break
- 1:30pm – Afternoon Session 1: 3D scanning demo with Kathryn Reuter (Van-Pelt Library 623)
- 3pm – Coffee Break
- 3:30pm-5pm – Afternoon Session 2: 3D printing with Tex Kang (Education Commons)
- 5:15-7pm Ice Cream Social
- 9am Coffee
- 10am – Morning Session: Anaglyph Letterpress with Jessica Peterson (Fisher Fine Arts Library basement)
- Noon – Break
- 1:30pm – Afternoon Session 1: Vinyl Cutting (Fisher Fine Arts Library basement)
- 3pm Coffee Break
- 3:30pm-5pm – Afternoon Session 2: Screenprinting (Fisher Fine Arts Library basement)
- 9am – Coffee
- 10am – Morning Session (Van-Pelt Library 623)
- Noon – Break
- 1:30pm – Afternoon Session (Final Project)
- 3pm – Coffee Break
- 3:30pm – 5pm Show and Tell/Closing
- 18x24 inch
- RGB Color Mode
- Adobe Illustrator file format (.ai)
- Cutting lines should be red, vector etch lines blue, and raster etch areas green. Note that these should be the "true" RGB colors and not an approximation.
- Red 255, 0 , 0
- Blue 0, 0 , 255
- Green 0 , 255 , 0
- Set all line weights to .001pt.
- Convert text with Create Outlines
Blog Posts
Anemoia, AI, and Skeuomorphism: The Material Turn in Digital Humanities by Ryan Cordell
What is #DHMakes? by Amanda Wyatt Visconti, Quinn Dombrowski, and Claudia Berger
Journal Article
Digital Creativity as Critical Material Thinking: The Disruptive Potential of Electronic Literature by Alex Saum-Pascual
Book Chapters
The Care of Enchanted Things by Kari Kraus
Journal Special Issues
Crafting Encounters with Humanities Data: A dh+lib Special Issue
Enculturation: Issue 29: Critical Making and Executable Kits
Visible Language: Vol. 49 No. 3 (2015): critical making: DESIGN and the DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Edited Collections
Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities
On Making in the Digital Humanities
Monographs
Critical Making in the Age of AI by Emily Johnson and Anastasia Salter
Conversations
Conversations in Critical Making by Garnet Hertz
Courses
Critical Making in Digital Humanities by Anastasia Salter
Huge thanks to all of the wonderful people who helped make this Dream Lab course a success!
Erin Bailey, Taylor Caputo, Kadin Henningsen, Pamela Horn, Tex Kang, Christine Kemp, Jessica Peterson, Dot Porter, Kathryn Reuter, Whitney Trettien, Stewart Varner