Interfacing design and making of Ceramics: Expansion of ceramics practice through technology

This research investigates the relationship between crafting materiality and digital representation, and how experiential knowledge of crafts rooted in ceramics can be transformed and utilized in the use of digital technologies. Thus the research refers to the overall theme Materiality and Aesthetics in the conference.
Digital technology as 3D printing with ceramic allows to bridge from the digital design environment to fabrication. At the same time novel digital means can create new interfaces between the human, space and the material. Here advances in 3d motion capture technology and sensors allow capturing spatial hand gestures and body movement in real-time.
Where technology often seems to take us away from material this approach enables the designers body to be once again involved in the making. This approach builds on McCullough’s (1998) idea about a close connection between digital work and a craft practice, where tacit knowledge (Dormer 1994) is involved.
In the project experiments and design as a method of inquiry is used as a reflective practice in which the designed engages in a dual mode of reflecting on action and through action (Schön 1993).
The experiment in question investigates the idea of an interactive digital design tool for designing wall like composition with 3d ceramics and is working on two levels. One which has to do with a digital interactive system that responds on the movement of the hands; at a certain distance the user’s hands appear on a monitor screen as a pattern of circles, which size and 3d inner pattern are reflecting the position and speed of the hand. The second level has to do with realizing the modules in ceramics by 3d printing directly in porcelain with a RapMan printer that coils up the 3d shape in layers.