Rapid prototyping is a procedure for translating digital construction data into a real 3D form, as quickly as possible and without any intermediary steps. Stereolithography is a commonly used rapid prototyping method. Objects digitally rendered in CAD are “pressed out” of a bath of fluid synthetic resin or wax by means of a laser beam, layer for layer.
Surface made
by rapid prototyping
© Photo Fred Sionis
This modern, and still very expensive, form of prototyping is generally used in the high-tech industry to produce master patterns. Architects and designers are also increasingly making use of the procedure, in order to present their designs as engineered, error-free, high-tech forms.
3D
visual © Fred
Sionis
However, the resulting forms are not always completely error-free. If the CAD design is complex or statically unstable, the computer program automatically builds in small supports or bars. These remain in place until the end of the process as mistakes, and normally they must be removed by hand before the material solidifies.
Normally.
Final
product
© Fred Sionis
These “mistakes” are precisely what interest the French industrial designer Fred Sionis. He has been working with stereolithography in wax for several years and pushes the technical limitations of rapid prototyping in his experimental CAD constructions. In his Paris studio he creates forms that are just the opposite of the “logical” objects designed by technical engineers. Sionis “presses out” fragile products with a surreal effect that comes with their hyper-tech appearance. Even in photographs the objects give the impression of CAD drawings—with their thin supports and skins and lack of color.
The long wool thread in the center gives it away. This thing is real! A candlestick, but not a functional object. Does Fred Sionis design high-tech decorations? No. (Burning this kind of “candle” would mean destroying a product worth thousands of euros.)
Candles
© Fred Sionis
Better said, Sionis designs extreme opposites. At the end of a process representing the cutting edge of current production procedures, he adds something that provided illumination even in antiquity: the wick, the light of the ancients. This outdated light source functions as a contrast to computer-generated structures and unerringly accurate forms. It is a conceptual challenge to automated production—an existential focal point within an eye-catching accumulation of mistakes.
Contacts:
Fred Sionis
12,
rue Boyer
75020
Paris
