Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Edinburgh
Crossfire
The making of ‘Crossfire’ forms an experiment in the integration of new digital technologies with traditional craft processes.
In particular, ‘Crossfire’ used the spoken word and its effects on objects to interpret the unseen affect of sound upon material. ‘Crossfire’ exists both as an animation and as a set of domestic tableware.
‘Crossfire’ starts with an audio excerpt from the1999 Sam Mendes Film, ‘American Beauty’. The cross-fire of a domestic argument traverses a dining table, but where as in the film inanimate objects such as plates, cutlery and teapot are unable to express themselves, in ‘Crossfire’ the intensity of the conversation deforms them into unfamiliar shapes that encapsulate momentary emotions.
Audio files were extracted from the film soundtrack and transferred onto a digital data set that could be used as source code to drive a plug-in for 3D software. An existing plug-in for Cinema 4D was deconstructed so that new human variables such as gender and emotion could be programmed to directly deform objects modelled in 3D CAD. The sixty second duration of the animation creates1800 variables of each object, some of which were selected to be 3D printed in zp150 material, creating a tangible prototype that was then transferred back into its ceramic archival material.
The output was included in the 2011 MOMA exhibition, ‘Talk to Me: Design and The Communication Between People and Objects’ curated by Paola Antonelli. Further exhibitions included ‘Prediction’, Biennale International Design, Saint-Etienne, France, ‘Digital Solid’, Valenciennes Design Art School, Valenciennes, France, ‘Curious Minds – New Approaches in Design’, Jerusalem, ‘Marking’, Tokyo, ‘Lab Craft’, England and ‘Electronical Conversations’, La Panacée Montpellier.
The supporting animation was shortlisted for the International Vimeo Awards, judged by David Lynch. The Cincinnati Art Museum (2011) and the Crafts Council England (2010) acquired the series for their permanent collection.
