A new book is getting us to think about art and materials in the digital age

We’re spending half of our waking hours online. That’s a lot of time in which many of our senses aren’t being explored. Thankfully Jonathan Openshaw’s new book, Postdigital Artisans, documents a group of artists who are reengaging our sense of touch in the digital age.

“The virtual is no less real than the 'real' and the physical cannot be disentangled from the digital," explains Openshaw. “More importantly, the mindset and aesthetics that came with digital technology are reshaping the material world around this.”

Openshaw profiles 60 contemporary artists and designers, including Maiko Takeda, Daniel Arsham and Jolan van der Wiel, who are playing with this collaborative digital/physical relationship. The book also includes essays and interviews by and with leading figures in contemporary art, such as curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist. In essence, Postdigital Artisans is all about moving past the mono-sensory world of the internet and adding a tactile layer — creating physical things with an influence from the screen.  

This divide between physical and digital is a big talking point in the arts, one which we’ve touched upon in our State of the Arts observation. Nonetheless the move towards a new style of artist, the postdigital artisan, is a new concept which places the physical front and centre. As Openshaw says; “human ingenuity and tactile materials and experiences come first".