"As designers our role is to design systems with enough looseness built in to them that they result in different pieces."
Bocci's creative director Omer Arbel, guides Crane.tv through his latest project, the exploration of the sand casting technique and reveals the secrets of the procedure he used to create his new series of objects, "Series 19".
Vancouver based Arbel, has a background in architecture and along with designing for Bocci, he also leads his own multidisciplinary practice, OAO, which focuses on blurring boundaries between architecture, industrial design, and materials research. Initially the practice designed and produced limited edition furniture but it quickly evolved and currently produces designs for buildings, objects, furniture, lighting and electrical accessories. Arbel has won the red dot design award for the 22 Series plug socket, produced by Bocci and has been shortlisted for a 2010 World Architecture Award for his design of a private residence called 23.2.
Having always been drawn to the possibilities implicit to the process of making, as well as to the intrinsic qualities of material, Arbel in the video, gives us the chance to view the creation process of one of the objects, we witness how he takes a very conventional method of casting metal, a step further; how he experiments with it, how he explores the various capabilities, he embraces imperfection and finally creates imprecise unique objects.
"Instead of designing form we design procedures, that in turn results in form, the shape of the object is different in every other issue"
We see the process of casting molted metal, and Arbel explains how the rough texture of what is normally considered the over-spill of the production process is in this case included in the final object. The result is volcanic like -- "a frozen lava texture." The coarse copper piece is then partly polished to a mere finish, creating a playful contradiction, while brightly illustrating two properties of the same material. The final object resembles a tray or bowl which serves purely decorative objectives. It is an adventurous experiment, an electric combination of delicacy and severity, luxury and boldness.
Series 19 marks the first sequel of objects created by Bocci that overlook functionality focusing on pure aesthetics and beauty; essentially aiming to interact with the viewer provoking an esoteric dialogue.
"This is the first series of objects that we are making that have very little function, mostly they are there for some sort of an emotional response," Arbel concludes.
Text by Athina Kontonikolaki for Crane.tv
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a felicitous phrase indeed!