SYDNEY: The MAAS MUSEUM / Out of Hand
Sydney, November 2016 – Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital explores the many areas of 21st-century creativity made possible by advanced methods of computer-assisted production known as digital fabrication. In today’s postdigital world, artists are using these means to achieve levels of expression never before possible – an explosive, unprecedented scope of artistic expression that extends from sculptural fantasy to functional beauty.
Out of Hand will be the first major museum exhibition to examine this interdisciplinary trend through the pioneering works of more than 80 international artists, architects, and designers, including Ron Arad, Barry X Ball, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Jones, Anish Kapoor, Allan McCollum, Marc Newson, and Roxy Paine. Represented will be some of the most compelling creations from the past decade ranging from sculpture and furniture to fashion and transport.
Antonio Pio Saracino has been included in the exhibition catalogue with his design the Ray Sofa, that has been acquired by the MAAS Museum in 2014. The Ray Sofa is an exploration of the structural components found in the natural world and the ways in which they can find expression in design.
Each “sofa” is constructed with a cellular assemblage of multiple strips of rubber foam and then coated with an elastic polymer skin. This chair exists as a visual contradiction – it looks as hard as a gemstone, but in fact it is soft and comfortable. When viewed from above, the Ray Sofa is reminiscent of a composition of pixels and also resembles the way crystals are formed.
Today’s digital fabrication methods such as 3D printing, CNC (computer-numerically-controlled) machining, and digital knitting unite divergent artistic approaches, offering new opportunities for individual artists, architects, and designers to integrate these skills as vital part of their personal creative processes, representing the fruits of a new movement.