De Rebus Natura - Nacho Carbonell

Nacho Carbonell De Rebus Natura

d e r e b u s n at u r a

HOMO HABILIS

Throughout these densely creative years there was only a single designer who pushed the frontiers of craftsmanship to extremes, personified a new breed of maker, and introduced an innovative direction for the decades to come. Going far back

in time to invent a possible future, the Spanish-born designer Nacho Carbonell invented another, highly unusual, language that has the ability to touch people’s souls. He has found a primal principle of expression that has not been seen before. Highly original and organic, his creations recall our first primitive steps on earth as humans.

Single-minded and single-handed, his organic shapes and uncommon amulets are nature-driven and evocative of caves and curves as well as cocoons.

The use of primitive tools is part of his culture, employing modest and found materials is part of his cult. Opulent and abundant, like a stone-age figure, he crafts form from sand and latex, from air and rubber, and from pulp and paint. His highly tactile sand dunes are contrived to recline, rocked by moving and tactile form. His renderings of ritual animals, that are both natural and cultural, show the naïve spirit which inhabits the creator. Inflated by human body weight, deflated by lack of human compassion, they express the dualistic nature of our relationship with the living sources of nutrition and domestic adulation.

Homo Habilis – Li Edelkoort

At the turn of the last century, crafted contemporary design took on a significant role. This revival of arts and crafts represented a way to combat the fear of a future consisting of purely virtual societies, filled with immaterial ideas and unattainable merchandise, invisible textiles and almost anaemic colourings. The numbers of screens invading people’s lives caused them to turn in the direction of greater tactility and substance, as compensation for the lack of stimulus through their fingertips. Creators therefore turned to fundamental production processes and investigated natural materials such as minerals, pigments and earth. The machine was discarded and hands were reinstated and venerated as the foremost tool – a movement that, two decades later, is still influencing consumer goods on a large scale and at all levels. The rediscovery of wood and wool, felted textiles and pelts, metals and ceramics, the construction of a slower civilisation – this intention to reinvent craft processes has also influenced contemporary industrial design, which now uses innovative production procedures to mimic the handmade.

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List of works

List of works

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Pump It Up Year: 2007 Materials: Foam, silicon

Dream of Sand Year: 2007 Materials: Rubber, sand

Ensuing from a fascination with how species interact to form close bonds, how they help one another to survive, Pump it Up expresses this bond. The act of giving life is probably the most satisfying act for a human being (even when it’s an artificial life). Pump it Up gives you the opportunity of creating your personal companion, your own pet, just by using your bodyweight. The chair adapts to the shape of your body, causing the animals to inflate. Once you get up again, they will fall asleep, awaiting your next visit.

This series of outdoor benches has been made using sand as a design tool, which is then coated with rubber. These pieces of furniture can be created on the spot, enabling them to take on characteristics of the environment where they are built. The technique of shaping these benches is very similar to that of making a sand castle, the one difference being that, once the desired shape is found, it is preserved in rubber.

Soft Concrete Year: 2007 Materials: Concrete The process used in the making of Soft Concrete is what defines its shape. Different shaped bags are filled with concrete to shape their function, as an outdoor bench. Coloured pigment is added to the concrete, after which it is poured into the bags. Once these are ripped off, the furniture has a quaint, soft and friendly look.

Por las Ramas Year: 2007 Materials: Plastic Foil Inspired by the technique of wrapping, Por las Ramas creates a space in nature where you can feel protected, like a foetus. The sense of home is strongly linked to the material – the cocoons are constructed from bioplastics (which are used in agriculture and disappear after one season). The installation is intended to be transitory and should be reclaimed by nature.

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Evolution Collection Year: 2008 Materials: Steel frame, paper maché

Craft Punk Year: 2009 Materials: Steel structure, Fendi leather Inspired by the idea of punk culture and DIY, this project was conceived in a survivalist environment where improvisation is a must. Whereas a punk would use basic skills and a stapler to mend his trousers, Craft Punk goes a step further and attempts to recreate life. Using staples, scrap leather and basic moulding skills, the project brings these leather creatures back to life.

Commissioned by Fendi

Bench represents the crowds of daily life and its attached cocoon is a doorway to escape from it; and the third chair is called The Lovers’ Chair and it provides a confrontation with the two aspects of behaviour – private and public – exploring different ways of communication, becoming a connecting tunnel.

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

Tree Chair Year: 2009 Materials: Steel frame, leaves, sawdust, Paverpol This chair wants to find its role in the world – the chair’s intention is to give the user something more than just a resting spot. It wants to provide a place where people would come to rest and relax. If it were able, it would collect all the leaves and branches from around about and build a shelter at the top of its ladder, it would even use sawdust from neighbouring furniture factories.

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

List of works

Living in an era where we are saturated with information, the Evolution Collection provides a refuge to escape and digest. The material used is recycled paper, a residue of excess information. The ink has been separated from the paper in order to recycle the paper as well as the ink. This first Evolution edition consists of three different pieces – the first is One Man Chair, which stimulates personal thinking; the

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List of works

Diversity Year: 2010 Materials: Various Diversity unveils a broad array of recently created finishes made from gravel, thorns, resins, broken glass, monofilaments, and other substances. In the new Diversity series, there are twenty variations on the same form – a slender-legged chair attached to a narrow, covered desk – each one has a distinct finish. One

is coated in ‘hair filaments’ that can be combed and groomed, another in shards of broken glass from used wine bottles, yet another in a granular concrete coating, and many more...

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

Bush of Iron Year: 2010 Materials: Steel

Luciferase Year: 2011 Materials: exterior: epoxy resin with different coloured sands, covered with plaster or metal dust. Interior: epoxy resin with coloured pigments

The Bush of Iron has been designed using a reinforced iron structure which houses thousands of wire spines that seem to extrude from the desk-like frame. In spite of the animal-like inspiration, the cold, serene attributes of metal have been kept and given a weight (close to a ton) and a volume large enough to create an overwhelming atmosphere within its surroundings. From inside the piece the user will find a space to rest, think, isolate himself – always protected from the outside thanks to the metal extrusions which protrude metres into the air.

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

Luciferase means ‘carrier of light’ and is a reflection on flora and fauna growing in abysses, or at great depths. Even more so than lamps, they are light-producing creatures.

The family’s soft exterior and velvety materials resemble the skin of an animal, contrasting with the interior which is all diaphanous and translucent textures showing thorns, hard protrusions, tongues, straps and filaments.

Commissioned by Galerie BSL

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Playground Closes at Dusk Year: 2011 Materials: Metal, stainless steel, bronze, glass to – a sensual experience in which the observer participates, plays and interacts with the parts, becoming not just simply a playground user, but someone with the ability to experientially merge with the whole context.

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

Soft LED Light bulb Year: 2012 Materials: Silicone and LED technology The body of the light bulbs has been shaped using rubber, making the LED light bulb unbreakable and soft to the touch, thus escaping the idea of the fragile coldness of conventional light bulbs. By using rubber as the primary material, whilst combining it with the established, simple body shape, the new LED light bulb can easily fit to existing environments. Subtle detailing, provided by an adaptable textured finish, creates the bulb’s strong character.

Commissioned by Booo

Silent Wall Year: 2012 Materials: Foam This colourful, textured wall tapestry measures six by three metres. Occupying a complete wall of the restaurant, the more than 30,000 differently pigmented foam pieces represent the horizon. The tapestry’s material properties mean that it absorbs sound. Silent Wall is situated in the restaurant Pane e Acqua in Milan (IT).

Commissioned by Rossana Orlandi

List of works

Undefined connections between our senses and our surroundings are represented with this collection of pieces which coerce observers into interacting with them, waking up their senses and steering them to experience themselves differently in relation to the surrounding environment. All the pieces are supposed to be smelled, touched, climbed on and listened