A practice-led inquiry into the nature of digital jewellery: craft explorations and dialogical engagement with people

Koulidou, Konstantia (2019) A practice-led inquiry into the nature of digital jewellery: craft explorations and dialogical engagement with people. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

In the widely explored area of wearable technology research, the theoretical work on digital jewellery has been largely done outside the art and craft context. Taking a jewellery perspective, this research focus on atypical personal interactions with digital technology in order to address questions associated with digital devices and potentially open up our expectations of the digital as a material within jewellery practice. Principally this thesis investigates he question “How can we design digital jewellery that are highly experiential and personally meaningful to the wearer?”

This thesis addresses the need for jewellers to assert their relevance in the current debates around digital culture and the meaning associated with wearing digital devices. This practice-led research project investigates the role of digital jewellery to support self in transition in order to progress these debates. For this research, I created research methods to support participatory engagements. Following the values of experience-centred design, I designed exemplars of digital jewellery. Microcosmos, Topoi, Travelling with the Sea and Togetherness: Anthos and Chronos Brooches are examples of digital jewellery that have resulted from this research. These concepts were inspired by the lives of three participants and myself who frequently travel back to our native countries but who live permanently in the UK and who experience feelings of being in-between.

Within the participatory engagements, novel design methods have been created for this particular research context. The method of Staged Atmosphere introduces the performative aspects of design probes in the context of a plane and the method of Dialogical Sketching offers a sensitive way to explore aspects of self in non-descriptive and imaginative ways with participants. These methods practised in this research contribute to design by enriching the role of creative practice to offer highly dialogical and sensitive to the research methodologies. My approach to designing digital jewellery has resulted in the development of a framework for understanding and conceptualising digital jewellery. The framework discusses the poetic qualities of the jewellery pieces by unfolding the narratives associated with their form, function and interaction. The framework contributes to discussions around how jewellery practices and digital technologies can suggest experientially rich interactions for people.

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