SuperFormLab: showing SuperFormLab: Digital experiments in clay

3D-printing in clay and ceramic objects shaped by your own sounds and movements! Digital form transferred via CNC-milling to ornamental ceramic wall-cladding. Brave New World…

Students and their teacher at SuperFormLab, the new ceramic workshop of the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, will be showing results of their investigations into the potential of combining digital technologies with ceramic materials.

It is now possible to shape the most complex mathematical, virtual 3D objects through the use of advanced software-programs. And more than that – you can now get these objects out of the computer and be able to hold and experience them with your hands. Even made in clay. At SuperFormLab, workshop for the new education in Ceramic Design at the School of Design, the integration of digital technologies in relation to the ceramic materials and techniques is a main focus area.

For its next exhibition at the gallery, Copenhagen Ceramics has invited students from SuperFormLab and their teacher, ceramicist PhD Flemming Tvede Hansen, to show some of the results of their experimentation in this new, rapidly developing field.

The exhibition will be demonstrating how digitally based technologies can be used creatively both in the context of functional ceramic products and applied as ceramic elements in architecture.
By showing how the digital form is created as well as its transformation into the physical material, the exhibition will demonstrate what exactly these techniques can offer in working artistically
with ceramics.

SuperFormLab was established in 2011 in connection with the relocation of Danmarks Designskole to campus Holmen - and the subsequent merging with the Schools of Architecture and Conservation. The education substitutes the former department of Ceramics and Glass and is based on material experimentation as pivotal point for developing new designs. The hands-on experience of the students is central, providing the ground from where innovation of design and new artistic expression can develop out of a deeper understanding of the material qualities in relation to both new and classic technical possibilities, notably the digitally controlled technologies. The digital software is regarded as a material in its own right, to be explored artistically and technically in parallel with the ceramic materials themselves.

The education is structured as a 3-year bachelor program, followed by two years of master studies. The courses are offered equally to students from other design disciplines, e.g. industrial design. Teaching is mainly in English as the program is attended by a relatively large group of non-Danish students, who seek exactly this combination of being able to work innovatively with the ceramic materials based on a Scandinavian tradition, whether in developing new functional ware or in renewing the tradition of the use of ceramic materials in buildings.

Exhibiting students are Mirja Amdrup Laugesen, Kajsa Lannemyr, Anne Marie Bisgaard, Mia Maya Christophersen and Hanieh Heidarabadi. Lecturer PHD, Flemming Tvede Hansen, will be showing experiments with digital form based on voice-sound and bodily movement.