Reflection on Unfold's
installation
l'Artisan
Électronique by Claire Warnier (Unfold)
for
Cumulus,
International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art,
Design and Media. The text zooms in on the installations
various intersecting themes and research topics: A 3D printer as a
production tool; The craftsman and his tools; Digital crafts; A
virtual potter’s wheel as a physical design tool; The beauty
of imperfection and Open design, a new way of designing?
Download text
here or
click
more for the full text
L’Artisan Electronique
text by Claire Warnier
A digital pottery workshop
In a big white space in Z33 stands a long table. On one side of the
table, there is a chair. When you are seated, there is an empty
potter’s wheel and a green laser in front of you. Behind the
wheel the image of a revolving cylinder is projected. By touching
the laser beam with your hand, the shape of revolving cylinder
changes according to the movements of your hand. It’s a
potter’s wheel where the material to be moulded consists of
air. A virtual potter’s wheel. Visitors of the installation
can mould the vacuum as they wish. Once they have completed their
virtually shaped design, it is saved in a database. The last 16
designs are projected onto a white wall.
On the other side of the table, a machine transforms the virtual
design into matter. Thin rolls of clay are layered on a
downwards-moving plateau. This technique is called 3D printing,
also known as Rapid Prototyping or Rapid Manufacturing. Although in
fact, there is nothing rapid about it. In order to print a 10 cm
object, the machine takes about an hour. It’s soothing to
watch, however. With each new layer, the humming motors sing to a
more or less identical tune. Halfway alongside the table there is a
display case in which the printed designs are laid to dry and
displayed as artefacts of a new history.
A 3D printer as a production tool
Unfold, a Spatial Design bureau founded by Claire Warnier and Dries
Verbruggen, developed l’Artisan Electronique together with
interaction designer Tim Knapen for the exhibition Design by
Performance in Z33 Centre for contemporary art and design. For some
time already, Unfold has been fascinated by the democratization of
the Rapid Prototyping technique through the arrival of open source
3D printers such as Fab@Home and RepRap.
RepRap stands for Replicating Rapid Prototyper and was initiated by
Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath. He came up with a 3D
printer based on biomimesis, which can be reproduced and assembled
by anyone via online building plans and open source software for a
fraction of the price of a commercial 3D printer. This way, an
expensive digital tool is made available to everyone who is
interested and who wishes to spend their time on it. Soon after
that half commercial building kits for RepRaps came on the market,
neatly containing all the necessary elements in one kit. Unfold
purchased a kit and built their own 3D printer.
The 3D printer proved to be an interesting tool. Aside from the
fact that this machine can print objects designed in a 3D
programme, the fact that Unfold could assemble it themselves, was
just as valuable. As the machine is self-built, it is easier to
detect why some prints go wrong and why the machine isn’t
always functioning as it should. As a result, Unfold continually
learns more about the technical aspect of the machine. In addition,
the RepRap is a very accessible and modular design that actually
encourages the user to make adaptations and adjustments.
The craftsman and his tools
In an article on LettError Jan Middendorp demonstrates how
important tools are for a designer. He refers to the fact that a
craftsman, the predecessor of the designer, was never completely
satisfied with the tools that were sold in shops. “They
always had the tendency to personalize their tools, to appropriate
them by honing them, converting them or expanding them. The more
specialized the work, the greater the demand for customized or
individually made instruments.” In the same text, Middendorp
also talks about the tool horizon. It is a typical burden of
designers in the digital era: a digital design programme is imposed
upon designers as if it were a preset straitjacket. Digital
programmes provide enormous possibilities, but they are never
endless. Quite soon the designer is confronted with the limitations
of his ability within the programme he is working in. These
programmes are also mainly closed source; it is almost impossible
to adjust them to the needs and wishes of the designer. As Unfold
embraces the possibilities of new technologies, they decided to
expand their tool horizon. Unfold started to
‘customize’ their 3D printer into a clay printer. The
open source hardware allows them – similar to traditional
craftsmen – to create their own tools. By doing so they break
away from a predetermined way of designing, dictated by the
existing digital tools. As such, they can thoroughly intervene in
the production process - and therefore also in the eventual
design.
Digital crafts
A RepRap or RepStrap 3D printer is designed to print
thermoplastics. The printing head heats the material upto its
melting point and extrudes it via a narrow nozzle, after which the
material cools off and dries up. Widely used plastics are ABS and
PLA, a plant-derived plastic which is biodegradable. Although these
materials are highly interesting, especially PLA, Unfold chose a
more high-grade material for their designs. A material that makes
the user feel that he possesses an object with real value and that
not associated with a disposable item.
Ceramic is a natural material that has been used to produce
utensils for thousands of years and has an intrinsic added value.
Because of its fragility people tend to be careful with it. It also
often considered as an expensive luxury item due to its yet
intricate production process and the variety in quality. The fact
that ceramic objects are often passed on as an inheritance gives
them a quality of eternity and value, which is enhanced by its
fragility.
For the clay printing head, Unfold based itself on an open source
design for a cake frosting printing head: it consists of a
reservoir for the clay, or the frosting, that is connected to an
air compressor. The pressure on the reservoir produces a constant
flow of clay paste that can be shifted via an electronic valve.
This way, the shape is formed layer by layer, similarly to plastic
objects, but in this case without heating the material.
It was only when the first ceramic object came about on the
printing bed that Unfold realised that the extrusion technique that
the printer uses is very similar to a technique used in traditional
pottery: ‘coiling’. The coiling technique consists of
building up separate rolls of clay until a solid form is reached.
Suddenly this technological application came very close to an
age-old craft. Due to this technical similarity, the printing of
clay became a logical step in a search for innovation but with
respect for traditional methods.
A virtual potter’s wheel as a physical design tool
Printing with clay is one thing, but designing objects that can be
printed in clay is something else. Unfold’s virtual
potter’s wheel adds a physical element to designing. By
moving your hands, the digital material is ‘moulded’.
All kinds of accessories can be used to help create a mould: sheets
of paper, pieces of bended metal, manufactured timber.
A present-day designer mainly designs with computerised design
programmes. But whether he is writing an email or drawing an
architectural construction of a building, the graphic interface
leads to little or no difference between his physical
actions.
The illogical relation between the graphic interface of a computer
and its physical operation has often been pointed out. There are
few references to the physical aspect of designing. The designed
object is digital, but also the tools that are traditionally
associated with designing, such as a hammer, a saw, a plane,
sanding paper, a mould,… have all been transferred to the
computer screen. The physical connection with the end product, as
we know it from the craftsman, is practically
nonexistent.
Yet, a digitally designed product still holds enormous advantages.
Digital designs can easily be adapted and hardly take up any
physical space and through the arrival various digitally operated
machines, they can also be reproduced in different ways.
Between the supporters of physical craftsmanship on the one hand
and enthusiasts of digital design created on the
‘universal’ computer on the other hand, Unfold chooses
not to take sides, but would rather explore the production process
of both working methods. In L’Artisan Electronique, Unfold
tries to narrow the gap instead of widening it. In this
installation, the physical, traditional and the digital start to
become one, as it were.
The beauty of imperfection
Rapid Manufacturing is a matter of producing each object as a
precise rendering of its 3D digital design. At this point, the
technique is so advanced that the resolution is high quality and
the error rate is zero. The ceramic objects that Unfold prints,
however, are far from perfect. Sometimes there is an air bubble in
the clay causing an unevenness, or they clay is too dry, as a
result of which the clay doesn’t flow smoothly enough. Each
object that has thus far been created with the clay printer has its
own ‘character’. Some are practically perfect, others
are surprisingly loopy, some have a fine resolution and others are
coarse and quirky.
Within the world of craftsmanship there is a recurrent dilemma. On
the one hand, there are the craftsmen who glorify the traces of the
creation process. A thumbprint, a slightly jagged vase; all signs
of the maker. Others rub and brush until all irregularities have
disappeared. There is a case for both. In a world of mass
production, we aren’t used anymore to imperfections and
slight differences between similar objects. Even our fruit and
vegetables are grown in such a way that they are practically the
same as our neighbour’s. All cucumbers are equally long;
otherwise they won’t fit in the box. Consumers prefer
tomatoes to be round and red. If an item is slightly damaged, it is
sold in a clearance sale as a b-choice.
Thanks to the industrial revolution and the invention of the
machine, mankind is able to make perfect, mass-produced items that
are indistinguishable from each other. A machine repeats the same
movements over and over again. A craftsman, no matter how good he
is, is unable to do this. This makes the machine, but also the
items it produces, cold and distant. The Arts and Crafts movement
already felt that a machine makes an object soulless. But the clay
printer, on the other hand, is not perfect, which makes it and its
products a bit more human.
Designers have often commented on the need to create perfect
products. The most famous is perhaps Hella Jongerius’
B-service. L’Artisan Electronique also touches on the
subject. Despite the fact that Unfold wishes to achieve a more
convenient printing process, they are also fascinated by the
current flaws of the printing process. Researching the cultivation
of these flaws is something Unfold wishes to pursue: a new imagery
for new design methods.
Open design, a new way of designing?
Unfold is proud that they, as a design bureau and not an
engineering company, have managed to add both the ceramic
printer and the virtual potter’s wheel to the world of
design. This achievement is a ‘proof of concept’: it is
possible, even though you’re not an expert or technically
knowledgeable, to create, influence or hack tools that further your
design practice. Especially the arrival of the open source
philosophy and the development of open source software and hardware
create opportunities for renewal.
According to some, this is only the beginning of what they call the
Digital Revolution on your Desktop. Some say that soon everyone
will have his own 3D printer. Just like the A4 printer once was a
10.000 dollar toy for the happy few, in the near future, the 3D
printer might make shift from the lab and the industrial plant to
the copy shop around the corner and who knows to your own home
office. No more e-cards for your birthday, but a gift that neatly
rolls out of your printer. An appealing concept, isn’t it? No
more transportation costs, just Google it and print a new teapot,
doorknob or phone.
The big question of course is if this is really going to happen.
According to Joris Peels from Shapeways we are not heading in this
direction at all: “Long ago already the sewing machine became
a consumer product. Everyone can afford a sewing machine and
they’re not that difficult to operate. But does this mean
that everyone is going to start making his or her own clothes? In
the meantime, it has become clear that this is not the case.”
(Personal communication, March 29, 2010). Designing objects in 3D
computer programmes, despite of the arrival of Google Sketchup,
isn’t always that easy and still requires some, actually a
lot of, practice.
Paul Atkinson, on the other hand, counters the argument by stating
that in order to operate the RepRap, a person doesn’t need to
master any specific physical skills. Contrary to the sewing machine
or other Do-It-Yourself hobbies that require some kind of
handiness. In other words, in order to produce a high-quality item
one doesn’t need to be experienced in certain techniques. The
printer guarantees a perfect execution; the internet provides the
right design. (Personal communication, May 11, 2010).
Open source, open hardware and open design are interesting
developments that will have social, economical and ecological
implications. Whether this means that everyone will own a 3D
printer in the near future, is mere speculation. Fact is that these
developments will have a great influence on the professional
practice of designers. The relationship between amateurs and
professionals and between designers and consumers is bound to
shift. Production and distribution models will be democratized and
copyright issues will only become greater. At first sight,
L’Artisan Electronique appears to be an innocent and
uncomplicated installation, but it actually stands at the
intersection of contemporary developments of which we can never
really predict the outcome.
drs. Claire Warnier
Assistent design critics and theory Sint-Lukas Brussel and designer
at Unfold
contact