Touching the void: Introducing the virtual potter’s wheel

Milan – Belgian gallery Z33 is pushing pottery into never-before-seen, technologically fantastic realms with today’s launch of ‘L’artisan Electronique’ by Unfold + Tim Knapen.

In fact, Z33 is promoting techno-pottery throughout the week with a series of events,entitled ‘Design by Performance’, which will show what is possible with live CAD (computer aided design) drawing and rapid prototyping today. By enabling a potter to sculpt simply by shaping their hands in the air, this synthesis looks set to revolutionise a deeply traditional craft and a time-worn combination: the potter and the wheel.

More than just having the ‘wow’ effect, as seen in previous commissions by Z33 from Front and David Bowen, this installation deftly invokes in the viewer a timely question: what makes a designer?

As 3D printing enables a growing number of unskilled consumers to become home manufacturers – as reported in our sections on glocalisation, DIY Culture and the Anarconomy in our Turbulent Teens report – we expect more designers to challenge the time-honoured role they play in determining the look and feel of the goods around us.

As the line between consumer and producer blurs, we look forward to a complex, tech-enabled and home-manufactured future.