Neri Oxman, whose 'Rapid Craft: Machine Art Recoded,' shown above, promotes the use of custom-made digital tools to support intuitive and artistic explorations into physical material constructions. Oxman received one of two second-place Schnitzer Arts prizes. Oxman's interdisciplinary research is based in architecture, engineering, computation, biology and ecology. It seeks to unite the concepts of craft, which she says 'embodies the skill set and techniques of selecting and processing material,' and rapid prototyping technologies. This approach offers technologies and knowledge to those who have not mastered what she calls the art of craft. 'Today, rapid prototyping technologies offer this knowledge to the people. But there's obviously more to the notion of a rapid craft than hitting the "on" button. Therein lays the art,' Oxman said. The annual Institute Awards Issue appears in Tech Talk on June 6. Images / Neri Oxman
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 23, 2007 (download PDF).
