Hand-Made Jewelry in the Age of Digital Technology

Abstract

People have always been central players in the world of jewelry. Not only as artisans who have given life to masterpieces of inestimable material and creative value, but also as users who have used jewelry as a means of expression, as a guardian of immaterial values or as a vehicle for messages. Over time, the human being has accepted the support of the machine in the productive, creative, and communicative processes, and today the world of jewelry swings between handmade and machine-made. Digital technology is increasingly affecting the production processes, the product itself, and the services connected to it. First, the paper aims to highlight the complexity in defining the role of luxury and handmade associated with the world of jewelry. Secondly, it aims to analyze the handmade relationship in the world of jewelry as a driving force for creating new values, of which the designer is the mediator. How the machine-made paradigm fits into the design, production, or communication of jewelry is described with contextual research from the second half of the last century until today, outlining the best examples in Italy and abroad. Then, an academic workshop is presented to investigate better the role of design in managing craftsmanship combined with new emerging technologies. The research on the context brings out the different declinations that the hand-machine relationship brings out in the world of jewelry. Then, the results obtained involve the analysis of the projects developed during the workshop, mediated through the relationship between hand and machine, underlining the designer's role. Innovation and technology, together with design methodology, redefine the stylistic features but also - and above all - deconstructs the classic concept of preciousness, resulting in the modification of the perception of the value. This implies a redefinition of the traditional parameters of luxury and the role of the human being, and a different way of designing its products. Finally, the paper analyzes the jewelry field and the designer's ability to develop the relationship between craftsmanship and new technologies, underlining the new value systems that this relationship can create.