Offset is a series that contains of 6 brooches and 6 rings, that are made of cast aluminum. The series explores the notion of digital manipulation and craft production.
Malcolm McCullough is examining the practiced digital hand in the book Abstracting Craft.
“The work of craft is neither in the design nor in the individual artifact, it is in the tradition of the very production. It is the presence of many objects identical in their conception, interchangeable in their use, but unique in their execution.”
This quote of McCullough inspired this series of jewelry. I wanted to create a series of jewelry that explored how an object could have the same design, look the same but still be unique in its making.
Richard Sennett is examining crafts relation to technology in the book The craftsman. He states that within today's craft practice, high-tech digital production, as well as local small-scale manufacturing, are readily available to any given individual, giving craft practitioners possibilities to investigate new ways of making, creating, and manufacturing in this changing context.
This project builds upon Sennett’s idea of relating craft to technology and is at the same time questioning the unique quality in craft. These series of brooches are all based on the same “original” that is a 3d-scan of a piece of costume jewelry from 1920-1930 and the art deco period made from faux materials(plastic and tin plated metals) . The “original” jewelry piece that was bought in a antique store was most likely a copy of a piece of fine jewelry.
The 3d-scanned copy is altered 3D CAD modeling program and it shape has been altered with the use off one specific command: Offset
Mesh Offset Method. Makes a new mesh with vertices offset a distance in the opposite direction of the existing vertex normal. This means that the Offset command simply makes the object bigger based on the inserted parameters. In this project it makes the brooch 1 mm thicker each time.
This creates a series of jewelry that is contains of multiple copies that are still unique in their design and their production. This creates a pieces of jewelry that are unique and at the same time are multiples.