As a co-editor of this issue of Studio Potter, I’m pleased to present several perspectives on digital technology in ceramics, including many that concentrate on extrusion-based 3-D printing with clay.

A conversation with Ronald Rael. Rael is a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and cofounded the company Emerging Objects with architect Virginia San Fratello.

We strongly feel that our work actually softens the tension between digital and analog and shows how technology is essentially a continuation of a long tradition of making and applying tools.

We don’t know if and how objects will matter in the distant technological future. This poses interesting dilemmas for ceramics: How do we hold on and innovate at the same time? How do we imagine a new future of tactility with clay?

The illusion is that with plastic 3-D printers and how you have this tool, it can potentially fabricate anything in the world that you could possibly imagine.

Nick Moen is discovering and designing bridges between materials, craft and design, and communities at The Bright Angle in Asheville, North Carolina.