Wednesday, June 22, 2005

FutureFactories

FutureFactories

If you're going to use rapid prototyping to manufacture objet d'arte, why mass produce when you can tweak the design for each item. That's the concept developed by designer Lionel Theodore Dean, used to create these unique and beautiful lumieres.

Via FutureFeeder

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My first reaction is "Oh now this will put me out of business" but I'm still not convinced. He says that you can design perameters of mutation but it seems that it is still a mutation based on organic shape and control. I would like to see the truly random mutation. By the by he never mentions the cost of these lovelies either.

experiment33 said...

Never fear my dear, I'm sure there will always be a market for hand crafted work. I'm sure that they're way expensive right now, but it will be reasonable in the future and probably sooner than we think. It seems to me if it were completely random, then the functionality would suffer greatly, and there would be no more artist necessary. This might not be that different from a Bob Ross "Happy Accident" where a random mutation (accidental drip of paint) gets assimlated into the parameters of the piece (becomes a happy tree in a landscape). I think for this work to be any good it needs the artist as starting point and boundry setter, though the artist could and maybe should open him or herself to view computer generated mutations beyond the original parameters just to see, but only fabricate the best.