Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand

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Summary: Can real artists use technology?
Review: A book which explores many issues around the role of the artist utilising new-media. This re-affirms the fact that in all art forms responsibility is upmost. Great read for artists considering using new technology, especially students.

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Summary: Revising the identity of technology
Review: A very thorough and easy read for beginners to start thinking what lies beyond the computing technology. This book may be similar with Gate's The Road Ahead, but does not intrigue much ecological vision into abstracting the craft.

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Summary: HCI meets craft
Review: One fear of digitizing art concerns the loss of craft needed to produce objects in physical media. McCullough may not set this fear to rest, but he does present a persuasive case that craft as we know it remains present in new media. He is able to define tools, tool use and tool systems so as to convince one that the tools of program interfaces are as much tools as their physical kin. The distinction between a tool and a machine and how both are represented in a graphic program's interface is especially intriguing. This book would be of interest to the many sculptors who have adopted digital methods into their work, but it may be of most use for human-computer interaction professionals designing 3D interfaces.