A Non-Representational Description of the Craft Practice of Wire-Bending

• In Event: Beyond Boundary Objects and Immutable Mobiles - New Ways of Thinking about the Movement of Knowledge I: Theoretical Perspectives of Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper, I describe wire-bending using a non-representational approach that is concerned with practices; material objects; and the body (Thrift 2007; Vannini 2015). “Practices” are defined as material bodies of work through corporeal routines, actions, and devices; “material objects” as the results of our perceptions and embodied experiences; and “the body” as the body’s interactions and relations with other things. I describe wire-bending through three lenses: its sociality; corporeality; and materials and materiality. Sociality is characterized as the communal aspects around wire-bending; corporeality as the physical body in relation to, and in conversation with things and materials as wire-benders perform wire-bending; and materials and materiality in terms of the materials’ purposes, properties, qualities, and performances. This rendering of the sociality, corporeality, materials and materiality of wire-bending enlivens it. No longer is it simply “wire and other thin, flexible strands of material bent with hand tools to create 2D and 3D structures,” but instead it is a milieu of interactions between community, senses, and the moving body, sculpting, painting, and drawing with static and dynamic linear materials for concurrent expression of each in three-dimensional space. This new definition acknowledges the rituals and entanglements embedded in wire-bending.

Author

• Vernelle A Noel, Georgia Institute Of Technology