Archiving Craft Gestures

Exploring how craft gestures can be digitized and transformed into interactive instructions.

🎯 Interactive gesture tracking with Procession
🏆 Real-time projection and feedback systems
🌐 Non-linear instruction methods
🔍 Focus on user-driven exploration
🤝 Bridging physical craft and digital interaction
🍐 by Pear Jansomwong

Try it yourself:

• Become Part of the Archive
--> Position your hands in front of your webcam
--> Follow along with the movements shown
--> Observe how your gestures are tracked and translated

Welcome to the Archive

• How can these gestures be preserved while allowing exploration and adaptation?

• These gestures are more than physical movements—they carry cultural memories that are meaningful than the outcome.

This project integrates craft gestures into interactive computational frameworks, positioning instructions as an intrinsic part of the archival process. By capturing and translating gestures into adaptive, non-linear instructions, it explores how embodied knowledge can be preserved and recontextualized across diverse materials and cultural contexts. Using computational tools such as hand tracking and real-time feedback systems, the project dynamically responds to user input, allowing for exploratory interactions that evolve with each engagement. The resulting system demonstrates how integrating archiving and instructional design can preserve craft practices while fostering new forms of cultural expression and material experimentation.

Proof of Concept | Prototype

Prototyping Gesture Archives: A Dual-Scale Approach

• Archiving Component

Natural Interaction

through.....

Digital manipulation

To explore this concept, I started by making a Digital Manipulation Prototype. Using Procession, I tracked hand and finger gestures to manipulate 2D digital models. This initial prototype replicates craft gestures like spinning, pinching, and molding in a digital environment.