With art, perception is everything and, when it comes to 3D printing arts and crafts, people’s perceptions can often be rather unfavorable. 3D printing can be thought of as cheating or cutting corners. Perhaps on the surface having a robot do the labor intensive part of manufacturing may seem to support that. But what of the artistry involved on designing on a computer? The same artistic choices are made. The same eye for design is required. Does an artist’s vision diminish based on the tool used to create it?
French grad student Alice Le Biez would most certainly have something to say on the matter. Over on the i.Materialize blog she recently spoke about her experiences designing products with 3D printable ceramics and how people’s perceptions of her work were dependent on the materials that she used to create them.
“My aim was to create an object which looks like a hand-made product. When I talk about 3D Printing in plastic with people around me, many believe it is a technology that will create more waste or unnecessary objects.” La Biez told the i.materialise blog “But when I talk about crafts, hand-made objects, their perception changes. They give instantly more value to a hand-made product. I really wanted to change their mind and show that designers and craftsmen can create valuable, emotional objects with 3D Printing.”
Le Biez was interested in people’s perception of her creations based on the materials used to create them, so she designed a set of three bowls and had them 3D printed in three different materials. She selected acrylic, nylon and ceramics and then showed them to her friends and colleagues and asked for their thoughts on the bowls.
People believed the acrylic bowls looked cheap and disposable, mainly because of the coloring and the general perception of plastic as something only cheap products are made with. She fared better when she showed people her nylon bowls, however. Nylon prints with a grainy texture that is slightly rough to the touch and people seemed to feel like the bowls were more valuable and interesting. She printed the third set of bowls in ceramics, which had the best response.
Other than the level of detail, the i.Materialse 3D printed ceramics are virtually indistinguishable from handmade ceramics. Ceramic objects at i.materialise are 3D printed on a ZCorp 3D printer out of a silica ceramic powder and sealed with a bonding agent, but, after that, the process is essentially the same, each piece is dried, fired, then glazed and fired again.
“People thought that it was a hand-made product because of the material. They were surprised to learn that we can print this kind of design in ceramics! Glazed ceramics looks more natural and hand-made compared to other materials, and it gives a lot of value to this set of bowls.” Said Le Biez. “That was really interesting because, of the three sets, the ceramic one was the cheapest one to make.”
I must admit, that the acrylic bowls really do look cheap and disposable, and the nylon doesn’t really look especially well-made either, in my own opinion. The design seems almost unremarkable and, frankly, they almost look like misprints. But the ceramic bowls are much more attractive, and the organic shape – which looked like a printing accident when made from plastic – looks stunning. Clearly, this is an object that needed the weight of ceramic in order for one to best appreciate the design sense of Le Biez. But it isn’t the material that was the problem with the first two sets of bowls. From my point of view, it was the material matched with Le Biez’s design that was the problem. All it took for her art to be looked at as actual art and not cheating was making the correct material choice.
You can read the entire interview with Le Biez over on the i.materialise blog, and you can visit her blog to see more of her artwork and creations. And, of course, you can check out i.materialise for more information on their 3D printed ceramics.
What we need is to get these printer down in price, then we can talk about going mainstream with nice material.