In the future, maybe pottery class won’t involve getting your hands dirty at all. Maybe you won’t even have to wear a smock.
At the “Design by Performance” exhibition at Z33 in Belgium, Unfold, a Belgian design firm founded by Claire Warnier and Dries Verbruggen, and designer Tim Knapen installed something they call “L’Artisan Electronique” (“The Electronic Artisan). Composed of a 3-D laser scanner and a RepRap–a cheap, open-source, DIY 3-D-printer–the installation allowed visitors to craft a virtual piece of pottery. All of the pieces created by users were projected onto the wall. And each morning, a selection of the previous day’s creations were printed on the RepRap.
For more pictures of the exhibition, check out Creative Applications.