Critical Making
This year's theme is critical making. Making what? you might ask. Art and crafts. Poetry and sculpture. Games and gadgets. We’ll be learning fabrication techniques: button making, letterpress work, laser cutting and 3D printing, knitting, carpentry, cooking, and wood-block printing. And more.
Hereford Residential College will be a site of artifice and creativity. And making is a remedy for the disconnection that characterizes this dematerialized moment of digital media. In the shadow of AI, the hands-on work called “critical making” is especially vital.
At Vaughan House teas and workshops, Herefordians can try out design projects and develop new resistances to the prattle of chatbots. They will meet visiting faculty and fellows involved in making. Our main effort is to think together about invention, authoring, repurposing, and the limits of artificial and push-button creativity.
As Herefordians, we bring together a variety of backgrounds, experiences, interests, majors, and years in school to make things new. (“Make it New” is an old poetic slogan that is salient here.) Ours is a community rooted in diversity, authenticity, and creativity. Come make with us and explore what it means to be human, a Homo faber.
