organic forms
RELEVANT SCREENS
CAD WORKSHOP
A CAD laser-cutting and lamp-making workshop hosted by The Hive, in Kennedy Town. Materials used were acrylic sheet as well as a prefabricated armature for the lightbulb.
Left, a selection of designs and colour schemes based off my previous work on photography and structures. The shapes were obtained by manipulating the black-white settings on images of buildings and, for my final choice, the developing foam structure of Cebolla.
I wanted to see how abstract shapes could gain meaning by being put
in the context of an overlapping matrix .
Right, snapshots of the laser-cutting process and my final colour selections. While originally intended to be harmonic,
A side-to-side comparison of the maquette and the final product. The different order of colours is due to the unexpected darkness of the blue acrylic, which I felt would have visually unbalanced the piece had it constituted the base.
I ultimately introduced a contrasting red as an acknowledgement of the shapes' resemblance to fire, which I found particularly interesting given that the source image was "rock".
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
A project which began with studies of Lee Bul's hanging sculptures, left, which reminded me of sci-fi cities. Above, I investigated alternative methods of creating a dripping aesthetic which did not utilise chains, ultimately settling on the natural catenary arch of string and coils of wire.
Additionally, fascinated by the effects of a heat gun on plastic, above, I embellished the resulting mobile using cling film. The combination resulted in a dialogue between apparently decaying and rigid elements, reminiscent of the sails of a battered ship.
CEBOLLA
Above, left, attempts at creating more organic-looking structures using clay and foam. Inspired by a water-damaged print of a building, which had warped the facade's mullions, I began with a regular wire grid frame. Then, through the application of surface materials, began to sculpt an exterior skin, which generated coral-like structures.
My preferred material was spray foam, left. It bonded to the wire better than clay did, was lightweight, and easy to sculpt. Thus prepared, I embarked upon a more ambitious project, which would ultimately take me months to complete.
The guiding principle behind Cebolla ("Onion", in Spanish), was the contrast between organic and inorganic forms. In
particular, on a more dystopian note, what happens when they began to blend into each other, either due to decay or conscientious architectural construction.
Using bamboo skewers and spray foam, I built the onion-domes such that they might seem to grow out of a stone
base. This I then painted and covered with artificial vegetation, to breathe life into the construction.
The project was also in no small part based off Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, which describes a plethora of fantastical architecture. To try suggest such magic, I limited the supporting structure to a shaky tripod, which was given rigidity by the foam sheath. Nonetheless, a series of accidents quickly taught me the dangers of building cantilevers on unsound foundations...
