User:Ninavdbroek/Paper/Presentation

All forms of art have their own language and ceramic art, a visual and tactile art form is no exception. The objects of Gotlind Weigel, a combination of stoneware, glaze and porcelain vessel, were inspired by curves. She took the straight lines from the Bauhaus movement and bends them into more natural shapes. Rock faces, lava shapes and wings of birds inspired her to create her collection. When I first saw them I immediately had the same association with these forms, amount from nature. It made me think about plants or mushrooms rising from the ground or water drops that reach the surface of the water. I was also attracted because they seemed to be formed by coincidence. Like a liquid matter was froze at a particular moment. Man likes to have fully control over things but maybe the beauty arises when a designer takes a step backwards at a certain moment, so the object can finish itself. When you start appreciating these imperfections that come along with coincidence, your relationship towards the material completely changes. For me this was a real challenge because I’m an exceptional perfectionist in everything I do. I choose to work with candle wax because it’s able to move very gradually and it reacts on heat. The main goal was to create a tool or installation that could influence the form of the material by gravity, heat or rotation. You’ll upgrade the conventional crafts and traditions and reveal the process at the same time, so other people get an understanding of this side of the story as well. The ideas of possible results are showed here. Unfortunately it remained with an identical copy in wax, which consists of different layers of colors to mimic the uneven spots of the original.

My second version was based on the fact that Gotlind had to deal with 25% shrinkage of the material during the process. The design of the objects also refer to this fact, the form suggest a sort of movement, which agree with my fascination for nature development and growth. Therefor I started to focus on bringing the collection alive. Could I let the vases breath for instance? Or, could I simulate a growing process, starting from scratch? I made a short video, which I regard as a starting point for this fascination and I’ll show you in a minute.

Combining technology and nature is very important I think. The efficiency and intelligence of nature is a very inspiring study that could possibly change our way of dealing with products and re- design our integrated systems. Digital fabrication is a perfect tool to achieve this evolution because it’s much more efficient to ‘print’ things locally and besides that, I think it’s in human nature to make things ourselves. But, we do have a cliché image of technology coming from the industrial revolution, which is very mechanical and without any esthetics. And because of this mechanic look and feel there’s formed a huge gap between human and machine. It’s not easily for us to relate with technology so the question is; how can it feel more natural, sensual, soft and organic? Is it achievable to blur these edges?

One material I experimented with for instance had both the organic characteristics as the mechanical properties. It moves very gradually and slowly while the iron oxide makes the material react on any magnet that appears within near distance. The composition of the material is actually very chemical but therefore I was even more interested. That such synthetic stuff can move so naturally and that the process is ‘semi’ controlled by the designer. This minor is about analog verses digital, but for this assignment I interpreted that as alive verses non alive and this video is a translation of that.

/ Video

So because of some private circumstances I was not capable to realize the original intensions and what I’m presenting now is only a handful of what it could’ve been. I’m sorry for that.