APPRENTICESHIP 2.0

APPRENTICESHIP 2.0: Enhancing Virtual Embodiment with Simulated Material Know-How that Supports Human Creativity

APPRENTICESHIP 2.0: Enhancing Virtual Embodiment with Simulated Material Know-How that Supports Human Creativity

Craft is often associated with socially and communally produced productive skills and artefacts reflecting localized place-based traditions or cultural identity. As VR/AR/XR technologies proliferate, each year we are also witnessing the list of endangered crafts grow. As an example, the Heritage Crafts Association (HCA) [1] maintains a list of over 200 endangered traditional crafts in the UK. However, the intersection of the two phenomena could inform alternative approaches to the dilemma of virtual embodiment.

True sense of embodiment in VR still needs further development to create experiences that are as uniquely meaningful as they are immersive. Embodied interaction implies the “creation, manipulation, and sharing of meaning through engaged interaction with artefacts.” [2] Moreover, the Replacement thesis from embodied cognition hypothesizes that those transactions in which an organism’s body engages, through interactions with its environment, replace the need to compute symbolic representations of the world when meaning making [3]. Embodied interaction therefore implies both a materially and socially induced process of meaning making.

Additionally, as automation technologies further advance, it is now more important than ever to take pride in human abilities and direct inevitable technological change to support human creativity and craftsmanship. Learning and Creativity is one of the grand human-computer interaction challenges we face [4]. Moreover, it can be argued that both skill and aesthetics are important elements of an embodied experience as “we are the most happy when we feel we perform an activity skillfully and gracefully even if it took us a painfully long time to get to this point.” [5] Thus, we are presented here with the opportunity to use craft materiality and values inherent to craft practices to deliver the elements of embodiment: materiality, meaning-making, and skill-building.

To support these claims, I present here a prototype system inspired by existing textile crafts. Apprenticeship 2.0 is an immersive VR experience and a new form of craft apprenticeship that uses particle-based simulated rope with recognizable, thus learnable, material properties. The system simulates material know-how and the passage of time in a virtual makerspace. The virtual material reacts to gravity, stretches and deforms in response to hand manipulation (hands are tracked with depth sensors). The similarity of the virtual material to real rope and the ability to weave with it pays homage to the critically endangered weaving technique ‘damask weaving’ – a new addition to the HCA list as of 2019.
Capturing both the perfections and imperfections resulting from the human hands, the project places Homo faber – man as the maker – at the heart of human becoming, to:
1. instill in them intrinsic values attained through craftsmanship – the enduring commitment and desire to do a job well for its own sake and awareness of resource limitations;
2. demonstrate the possibilities of human-machine symbiosis;
3. and provoke discussion about craft preservation.

Furthermore, in the midst of the ever-increasing speed of fast fashion and the endless race to the bottom of cheap labor outsourced to third world countries, it can be argued that fashion students are now graduating with ever decreasing material skills acquired through physical making. The option given to students to outsource most of their final year fashion collection production may further be feeding this endless cycle, whereby students fail to make a meaningful connection to materiality and slow making processes. Although students are graduating with more digital competencies in some areas, the proliferation of technology has inevitably made designing and making “disembodied acts, carried out at a distance from the physical self.” [6]
“This can be argued to be a key facet of post-industrial fashion practice, as designers have shed material skills or in some cases the willingness to engage with the material without digital mediation.” - Douglas Atkinson [6]

The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened this situation with fashion, textile and art students encouraged to embrace the digital landscape which although has potential to inspire innovation also puts limits on how much tactile experimentation students are able to do. If digital – or ‘contactless’ – is the future, how can we recreate tactility and embodiment in the virtual makerspaces we envision? Through this ongoing project, I hope to provide the answer to this question.

The two underlying values that inform the Apprenticeship 2.0 experience are material know-how and time.

Material know-how is acquired when an apprentice becomes acquainted with the working material as the first step to improving a skill. Different materials have different properties, some easier to tame than others, and some even exhibit different characteristics as time passes, transforming in the hands of the maker. Wool gets stiffer with repeated beating, while wood gets softer as the warmth and moisture from the hands soften its fibers. These emergent properties of materials, the delight in their discovery and the ultimate reward of learning to manage the emergent behaviors of materials form the very essence of what makes crafting a valuable experience.

Time is a recurring characteristic of most traditional apprenticeships where a master craftsperson builds a personal relationship with an apprentice to whom he/she passes on their skill and wisdom. In Japan, a Takumi - Japanese for ‘artisan’ - spends decades honing their craft and it is said that it takes 60,000 hours of training to become a true Takumi. To achieve this level of commitment, the Takumi is said to embrace mindful repetition where crafting becomes intuitive and second nature. It appears then that it is precisely this slow, repetitive journey to becoming a master craftsperson that eventually instills in the maker patience and persistence. It is these values that are devoid of economic and social conditions that Apprenticeship 2.0 aims to instill in the digital craft apprentice.

[1] Heritage Crafts Association 2020. The HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts. Retrieved August 27, 2020 from https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/redlist/
[2] Paul Dourish. 2001. Where the action is. The MIT Press. Cambridge, USA.
[3] Lawrence Shapiro. 2011. Embodied Cognition. Routledge Press. New York, USA.
[4] Chairs Constantine Stephanidis, et al. 2019. Seven HCI Grand Challenges. In International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 35, 14 (2019), 1229-1269. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2019.1619259
[5] Eva Hornecker. 2011. The role of physicality in tangible and embodied interactions. interactions 18, 2 (March + April 2011), 19–23. https://doi.org/10.1145/1925820.1925826
[6] Douglas Atkinson. 2017. Post-industrial fashion and the digital body. In Digital Bodies, eds. Susan Broadhurst and Sara Price. Palgrave Macmillan. London, UK, 150.

Craft is often associated with socially and communally produced productive skills and artefacts reflecting localized place-based traditions or cultural identity. As VR/AR/XR technologies proliferate, each year we are also witnessing the list of endangered crafts grow. As an example, the Heritage Crafts Association (HCA) [1] maintains a list of over 200 endangered traditional crafts in the UK. However, the intersection of the two phenomena could inform alternative approaches to the dilemma of virtual embodiment.

True sense of embodiment in VR still needs further development to create experiences that are as uniquely meaningful as they are immersive. Embodied interaction implies the “creation, manipulation, and sharing of meaning through engaged interaction with artefacts.” [2] Moreover, the Replacement thesis from embodied cognition hypothesizes that those transactions in which an organism’s body engages, through interactions with its environment, replace the need to compute symbolic representations of the world when meaning making [3]. Embodied interaction therefore implies both a materially and socially induced process of meaning making.

Additionally, as automation technologies further advance, it is now more important than ever to take pride in human abilities and direct inevitable technological change to support human creativity and craftsmanship. Learning and Creativity is one of the grand human-computer interaction challenges we face [4]. Moreover, it can be argued that both skill and aesthetics are important elements of an embodied experience as “we are the most happy when we feel we perform an activity skillfully and gracefully even if it took us a painfully long time to get to this point.” [5] Thus, we are presented here with the opportunity to use craft materiality and values inherent to craft practices to deliver the elements of embodiment: materiality, meaning-making, and skill-building.

To support these claims, I present here a prototype system inspired by existing textile crafts. Apprenticeship 2.0 is an immersive VR experience and a new form of craft apprenticeship that uses particle-based simulated rope with recognizable, thus learnable, material properties. The system simulates material know-how and the passage of time in a virtual makerspace. The virtual material reacts to gravity, stretches and deforms in response to hand manipulation (hands are tracked with depth sensors). The similarity of the virtual material to real rope and the ability to weave with it pays homage to the critically endangered weaving technique ‘damask weaving’ – a new addition to the HCA list as of 2019.
Capturing both the perfections and imperfections resulting from the human hands, the project places Homo faber – man as the maker – at the heart of human becoming, to:
1. instill in them intrinsic values attained through craftsmanship – the enduring commitment and desire to do a job well for its own sake and awareness of resource limitations;
2. demonstrate the possibilities of human-machine symbiosis;
3. and provoke discussion about craft preservation.

Furthermore, in the midst of the ever-increasing speed of fast fashion and the endless race to the bottom of cheap labor outsourced to third world countries, it can be argued that fashion students are now graduating with ever decreasing material skills acquired through physical making. The option given to students to outsource most of their final year fashion collection production may further be feeding this endless cycle, whereby students fail to make a meaningful connection to materiality and slow making processes. Although students are graduating with more digital competencies in some areas, the proliferation of technology has inevitably made designing and making “disembodied acts, carried out at a distance from the physical self.” [6]
“This can be argued to be a key facet of post-industrial fashion practice, as designers have shed material skills or in some cases the willingness to engage with the material without digital mediation.” - Douglas Atkinson [6]

The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened this situation with fashion, textile and art students encouraged to embrace the digital landscape which although has potential to inspire innovation also puts limits on how much tactile experimentation students are able to do. If digital – or ‘contactless’ – is the future, how can we recreate tactility and embodiment in the virtual makerspaces we envision? Through this ongoing project, I hope to provide the answer to this question.

The two underlying values that inform the Apprenticeship 2.0 experience are material know-how and time.

Material know-how is acquired when an apprentice becomes acquainted with the working material as the first step to improving a skill. Different materials have different properties, some easier to tame than others, and some even exhibit different characteristics as time passes, transforming in the hands of the maker. Wool gets stiffer with repeated beating, while wood gets softer as the warmth and moisture from the hands soften its fibers. These emergent properties of materials, the delight in their discovery and the ultimate reward of learning to manage the emergent behaviors of materials form the very essence of what makes crafting a valuable experience.

Time is a recurring characteristic of most traditional apprenticeships where a master craftsperson builds a personal relationship with an apprentice to whom he/she passes on their skill and wisdom. In Japan, a Takumi - Japanese for ‘artisan’ - spends decades honing their craft and it is said that it takes 60,000 hours of training to become a true Takumi. To achieve this level of commitment, the Takumi is said to embrace mindful repetition where crafting becomes intuitive and second nature. It appears then that it is precisely this slow, repetitive journey to becoming a master craftsperson that eventually instills in the maker patience and persistence. It is these values that are devoid of economic and social conditions that Apprenticeship 2.0 aims to instill in the digital craft apprentice.

[1] Heritage Crafts Association 2020. The HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts. Retrieved August 27, 2020 from https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/redlist/
[2] Paul Dourish. 2001. Where the action is. The MIT Press. Cambridge, USA.
[3] Lawrence Shapiro. 2011. Embodied Cognition. Routledge Press. New York, USA.
[4] Chairs Constantine Stephanidis, et al. 2019. Seven HCI Grand Challenges. In International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 35, 14 (2019), 1229-1269. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2019.1619259
[5] Eva Hornecker. 2011. The role of physicality in tangible and embodied interactions. interactions 18, 2 (March + April 2011), 19–23. https://doi.org/10.1145/1925820.1925826
[6] Douglas Atkinson. 2017. Post-industrial fashion and the digital body. In Digital Bodies, eds. Susan Broadhurst and Sara Price. Palgrave Macmillan. London, UK, 150.

Apprenticeship 2.0 is an VR-based craft system built on Unity 3D. It uses Leap Motion Controller to track the apprentice's hands. The main interaction mechanism in the experience is a pinching gesture. The user can grab points on the virtual materials with a pinch and move them around in the 3D space. A single thumb glove with two small push buttons on the inner thumb was designed to give the user additional input options to better control the material. To maximize natural hand interaction and minimize glove weight, a four-way stretch, 190gsm 95% polyester / 5% spandex jersey material was used to make the thumb glove.

Inside Apprenticeship 2.0, there are a number of different virtual materials. They exhibit characteristics similar to analog textile ropes/yarns, yet when working with them their behavior is augmented by computation giving birth to new hybrid materialities. The result is a unique handcrafting experience. Please view: https://vimeo.com/454220826

This significance of time is revealed inside Apprenticeship 2.0 using time-based elements in the form of day/night and seasonal cycles. As the apprentice spends more time crafting inside the experience, the visible, experiential change in the surrounding environment act as gentle nudges to the apprentice to continue making progress in what they craft - when not much time has passed, while also acting as compliment to the progress the apprentice is making - the sun sets when the apprentice has spent a full day's worth of time crafting. When the making is not going well, if the apprentice is struggling to tame the virtual material, well, there is always tomorrow. Please view: https://vimeo.com/419314042

Apprenticeship 2.0 is an VR-based craft system built on Unity 3D. It uses Leap Motion Controller to track the apprentice's hands. The main interaction mechanism in the experience is a pinching gesture. The user can grab points on the virtual materials with a pinch and move them around in the 3D space. A single thumb glove with two small push buttons on the inner thumb was designed to give the user additional input options to better control the material. To maximize natural hand interaction and minimize glove weight, a four-way stretch, 190gsm 95% polyester / 5% spandex jersey material was used to make the thumb glove.

Inside Apprenticeship 2.0, there are a number of different virtual materials. They exhibit characteristics similar to analog textile ropes/yarns, yet when working with them their behavior is augmented by computation giving birth to new hybrid materialities. The result is a unique handcrafting experience. Please view: https://vimeo.com/454220826

This significance of time is revealed inside Apprenticeship 2.0 using time-based elements in the form of day/night and seasonal cycles. As the apprentice spends more time crafting inside the experience, the visible, experiential change in the surrounding environment act as gentle nudges to the apprentice to continue making progress in what they craft - when not much time has passed, while also acting as compliment to the progress the apprentice is making - the sun sets when the apprentice has spent a full day's worth of time crafting. When the making is not going well, if the apprentice is struggling to tame the virtual material, well, there is always tomorrow. Please view: https://vimeo.com/419314042

https://ddw.nl/en/programme/3759/apprenticeship-20

https://vimeo.com/419314042

https://www.boloramgalan.com/

Bolor Amgalan is an interaction designer/researcher and a fashion design technologist using craft materiality to design culturally sensitive transition design interventions to achieve a more equitable future of work for underpaid craftspeople and garment factory workers, slow production and meaningful consumption. Her research spans programmable matter, virtual materiality, creativity support tools and craft preservation in VR. Born and raised in Mongolia, Bolor trained as a zero-waste fashion designer, and later developed her practice further at Central Saint Martins using speculative design narratives, and yet further at Parsons using computation. She programs hybrid materials that belong to both the digital and analog realms and occupy the space at the intersection of craft values, tangible interface design and embodied interaction.

Bolor's work has been exhibited in museums and shows internationally including the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the Museum of Science in Boston, Milan Design Week and Dutch Design Week. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships, scholarships and awards, including AAUW International Fellowship and WIL Fellowship.

An ongoing project of Bolor’s, and a work-in-progress next iteration of Apprenticeship 2.0, is the simulation of the process and technique of making a morin khuur. Also known as the horsehead fiddle, the morin khuur is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed musical instrument. The instrument consists of a trapeziform wooden-framed sound box to which two strings made from horse tail are attached. Legend has it that a shepherd named Namjil the Cuckoo received the gift of a flying horse which he would mount at night and fly to meet his beloved. But a jealous woman had the horse's wings cut off to stop Namjil from seeing his beloved. Without its wings, the horse could no longer fly and died. The grieving shepherd made a morin khuur from the now-wingless horse's skin and tail hair and used it to play poignant songs about his horse.

The morin khuur is one of the most important cultural heritage of the Mongol people and a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity as identified by UNESCO.

Thesis supervisors: Harpreet Sareen, Anezka Sebek, Loretta Wolozin, Anna Harsanyi

New York, NY, USA