Rosie Gunzburg. RMIT University School of Art. Selected Graduate 2019

RMIT University School of Art, Melbourne, Australia.


Artificial Bodies
Summary of Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Honours Exegesis and accompanying Research Project
 
Our contemporary times are marked by a rapid increase in the reliance on and development of sophisticated digital technology. When paired with gold and silversmithing craft practices, could these tools enable the production of unseen, unknown or new knowledge? This exegesis presents some findings and experiments on this open-ended research question. It examines how translation between physical and digital worlds can enable a pairing of digital complexity with materially agential craft processes, resulting in novel or unexpected results. By examining unfamiliar pairings of new technology with analog craft practice, the aim is to embrace the possibility for surprise. Much of the focus is on how these techniques can manifest as patterning devices, contributing to a material surface tension that blurs the familiar with the ambiguous. In this search for the unknown through technological transformation, the research aims to offer a reflection of the multiplicity of our digital, contemporary times and an optimistic embrace for the opportunities new technology may offer.

The Stitch research project accompanying this exegesis, consists of a series of 11 vessels and investigates transformations between the digital, hand-made and natural worlds. Through examining these transformations, the purpose of the project was to explore methods for translating digital information into physical form. Each vessel finds its origin in a found material (such as a rock or sea sponge) which has been digitally scanned and abstracted into a simplified form. The unrolled pieces are then laser-cut from metal and re-assembled using the Hololens Augmented Reality headset (see Fig. 1). The AR hologram enabled this accurate, customized folding, each piece could simply be manually bent by hand until it matched its floating digital copy. Similarly, this technology was used in the application of a glass enamel skin. A digital pattern was generated to follow each form, which was then projected onto its physical metal copy (see Fig. 2 & 3). The digital projection could be used as an instruction for making, each digital dash guiding the physical application of liquid enamel. 

This enhanced permeability between computer and human enables a digital complexity in the physical making; an interaction between the unpredictable and agential material behaviour of glass enamel with the digitally organised, algorithmic patterning of the computer. There is an unknown aspect to how the enamel will behave, we can’t predict how the glass will melt, slip, burn or congeal on the steel surface when it is fired. AR guided making enables a conversation between the certainty and precision of computer-controlled processes with the materially directed nature of craft.

Similarly, this synergy between computer and human opens the door to new techniques for making that are not normally associated with digital tools. The flexible integration of digital technologies into a studio craft practice opens the opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and collaboration. It allows for feedback whereby craft material practice may start to generate knowledge and new values are discovered through making.


More work and contacts:
Email: rosiegunzburg@gmail.com.
Website: https://rosiegunzburg.com/.
Instagram: rosiegunzburg.

Name of graduation student: Rosie Gunzburg.
Name of the guiding teacher: Kirsten Haydon.


Find out more about the courses at RMIT University School of Art, Melbourne, Australia.