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L'Artisan Electronique, 2010

L'Artisan Electronique is a digital pottery studio consisting of a virtual pottery wheel and a ceramic 3D printer.

Visitors can "turn" their own digital forms with the virtual pottery wheel, a special kind of 3D manipulation tool we built with lasers, optics and custom made software. Every object created with this device is saved in an ever growing database and briefly displayed in a projected digital cabinet. At regular intervals during the exhibition, the created digital forms are printed with the ceramics printer and put on display as part of the installation.

In collaboration with Unfold.
Photos by Liesje Reyskens & Kristof Vrancken for Z33
Commissioned by Z33 art center, Hasselt, Belgium for the exhibition "Design By Performance".

More images and making of on Flickr

Video: Making of and Vimeo channel for L'Artisan Electronique

Technical Details:
Software built in C++ with Open Frameworks
Computer vision with Open CV
 

Exhibitions
2021
MIDA International Craft 4.0, Florence, Italy
2016
Out of Hand - Materialising the digital, Powerhouse Museum/Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, Australia
Atoms + Bytes: Redifining Craft in the Digital Age, Bellevue Arts Museum, Seattle, USA
Play!, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Paris, France
Impression 3D, L’Usine Du Futur, Lieu Du Design, Paris, France
2015
Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South-Korea
2013
Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA
2012
KIKK Festival, Namur, Belgium
Space Oddity - Design/Fiction, Mac's, Hornu, Belgium
2011
Curious Minds, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Nijverheden, Zuiderzee Museum, Enkhuizen, The Netherlands
2010
Design Studio at Abu Dhabi Art 2010, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Ventura Lambrate, Milan, Italy
Design by Performance, Z33, Hasselt, Belgium

CONTEXT

1. Coiling technique

Coiling is a method of creating pottery. It has been used to shape clay into vessels for many thousands of years. It ranges from Africa to Greece and from China to New Mexico.

There are many ways to build ceramic objects using the coiling technique. To do this, the potter takes a pliable material (usually clay) then rolls it until it forms a long roll. Then, by placing one coil on top of another, different shapes can be formed.

2. Anish Kapoor - Cement Works

Cement printing works by Anish Kapoor displaying the exact same material properties as our ceramic prints on a much larger scale.

3. Laser 3D Scanning

Video of an early prototype of the laser scanning in our pottery wheel used as a simple 3D scanner.

4. REPRAP Darwin

RepRap is humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine.

RepRap takes the form of a free desktop 3D printer capable of printing plastic objects. Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself - a kit that anyone can assemble given time and materials. It also means that - if you've got a RepRap - you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend...

RepRap was the first of the low-cost 3D printers, and the RepRap Project started the open-source 3D printer revolution. It has become the most widely-used 3D printer among the global members of the Maker Community.

5. Ghost

Ghost is a 1990 American romantic fantasy thriller film starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore famous for its pottery scene.