Mimetic Machines: Collaborative Interventions in Digital Fabrication with Arc

This paper examines the collaborative process of developing Arc, a computer numerical controlled (CNC) engraving tool for ceramics that offers a new window onto traditional forms of craft. In reflecting on this case and scholarship from the social sciences, we make two contributions. First, we show that fabrication tools may integrate multiple and distinct roles (as copiers, translators and connectors) in their production of form, selectively limiting the agency of the maker and machine. Second, we situate small-scale manufacturing in a wider historical context of "mimetic machinery": machines for mechanical reproduction that draw their symbolic power from a material connection with the phenomena represented (in this case, sound and gesture). We end by sharing lessons learned for fabrication research based on this study.