How can digital technology support craftsmanship without removing the maker from the process? As part of this lecture, Aslı Aydın Aksan explores the role of digital technology within craft, including her experience developing the Hapticolor machine, an innovative color printer for fabric.
Through experiments with textile printing, natural dyes, and interactive machine control, the project investigates how digital tools, haptic systems, and open-source machine protocols can contribute to accessibility, interaction, immediacy, and scalability, while keeping the intuition, autonomy, and intervention of the craft maker at the center.
About the presenter
Aslı Aydın Aksan is an architect, researcher, and lecturer at Waag Futurelab. Her work explores the intersections of computational design, digital fabrication, craft, and design education through critical making and experimentation. Waag Futurelab is a research institute on technology and society working toward an open, fair, and inclusive future. The TextileLab explores sustainable and regenerative practices for the textile and clothing industry at the intersection of craft, biology, and emerging technologies.
About the project
Waag is running a two-part pilot at its Amsterdam TextileLab to reimagine the "craftsperson 2.0" and turn embodied traditional craft knowledge into open-source knowledge so these crafts don't disappear. The Amsterdam pilot, "Hacking the Machines," develops an open-source protocol to convert a CNC machine into an interactive haptic printing device for applying bio-based inks and natural dyes to textiles, drawing on Dutch traditions of block-printing, dot-printing and natural dyeing.
About the festival
The Ambacht in Beeld Festival ("Craft in Focus") is an annual celebration of craftsmanship held in Amsterdam. Running since 2013, it has grown into a major event with workshops and masterclasses by craftspeople from the Netherlands and abroad. What makes it distinctive is that the focus is not on selling products, but on exchanging knowledge and skills — the mission being to build appreciation for craft among people of all ages and enable encounters and cross-pollination.
With over 100 master craftspeople, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions, demonstrations, films and performances, the festival offers a chance to discover crafts, try them out, and learn new skills. Visitors can try everything from smithing, weaving and woodworking to glassblowing, felting and paper-cutting, and there's a cinema showing documentaries about craftsmanship throughout.
The next edition takes place on 26 & 27 September 2026 at the NDSM Loods in Amsterdam-Noord.
