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LIX The smallest 3D printer in the world. P.8
“PINKO HYBRID EXPERIENCE” P.25
PAULINE VAN DONGEN P.19
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JOSHUA ABARBANEL P.33
THE SMALLEST 3D PRINTER IN THE WORLD By Rossella Scalzo Selena Magni
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ust imagine holding a pen and use it like a magic wand to create whatever you want. Imagine drawing a sketch on paper that stands in 3D right in front of you. Today is not just imagination but reality, thanks to LIX 3D pen. If only some years ago the idea of printing in 3D seemed as remote as it was impossible, now technology has really destroyed any obstacle to creativity. In London, an industrial designer, a graphic designer and a young shoe-designer, all fond of new technologies, have gathered their knowledge to create something unique. LIX is a small and handy pen that makes it possible to draw in the air whatever you want. Its technology is the same as the 3D printers, with the advantage of being so small that you can hold it in your hand. Highest comfort and freedom of movement are two essential features of LIX that allow you to draw easily. Its elegant design reminds of a fountain pen, made of aluminium for the weight of 40 grams only. Powered by a small cable to plug in the upper part, it can be used everywhere thanks to an internal charging device. LIX, instead of ink, uses an ABS or PSA plastic fibre, both very resistant and flexible, that allows creating real sculptures. The fibre passes through the length of the pen through a device that heats it up and melts it, and when it touches the air, it cools down within few seconds. LIX can be useful in many different fields to create big or small structures with few simple gestures. Just think about fashion and the 3D decorations of clothes and the creation of jewels entirely made with LIX. If compared to the modern 3D printers, LIX helps creating small prototypes in a faster and easier way and with a greater personalisation. It can be perfect for the home-dĂŠcor sector, too, to create beautiful details. Within few months from the start of the online campaign for funding, LIX 3D pen has passed the fixed goal, obtaining more than 730.000 pounds and many dates in several start-up exhibitions are already set. The launch on the market is set for October and here in VAIN Magazines editorial office we are looking forward to buying one.
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AND TECHNOLOGIC FASHION Wear solar panels? Now you can. By Rossella Scalzo Luisa Attardo
hen thinking about the importance of energy in a society that depends on connectivity, the idea by Pauline van Dongen was born; she is a German fashion designer passionate about high-tech fabrics and expert in the field of wearable technology. The purpose of her invention is to connect technology and fashion, giving life to scientific creations. While working closely with a group of experienced researchers in the field of science and innovation, Pauline has integrated flexible solar panels on clothing, thus gaining the attention of the international press and not only. In an increasingly technological society, Pauline thought of two things that everybody, out of the house, bring with him/her: clothes and smartphones. Technology leads us to use the phone, no longer bound to call functions only, but for a lot of things that facilitate daily life, and which means that the battery must be constantly charged. So why not allow the clothes we wear to provide the charge to smartphones? Wearable Solar gives you the opportunity to charge your phone at any place we are by using solar energy. The line is composed of two prototypes, a dress and a coat that produce sustainable energy thanks to solar panels incorporated. The dress is an elegant sheath dress with leather corset and wool skirt containing 72 flexible solar panels. The coat, with a futuristic and tailoring design, made of wool and leather, contains 48 rigid solar panels. Both, worn and exposed to the sun for two hours, give a 100%charge of a normal smartphone. By her idea, Pauline van Dongen aims for a booming market, that of wearable technology, which is expected to reach a gain of $ 12.6 billion in 2018, a market that responds to the sustainable question of greater energy and connectivity.
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What concept lies behind your line Wearable Solar? Wearable Solar is about integrating solar cells into fashion, so by augmenting a garment with solar cells the body can be an extra source of energy. It’s really about the true integration of technology and fashion, which can transcend the realm of gadgets. Why did you think about fashion to create this line? Technology isn’t just tracking stuff, it’s also about expression. Fashion is a language that communicates identity and it’s important to create new expressions round the body. Why did you focus on the concept of wearability? Wearability is very important to my work because I am a fashion designer,” explained Van Dongen. “We’re dealing here with the human body and it’s not just a static body, it’s dealing with movement and expressions, a sensory surface so it’s very important to stress the wearability. Both items are still prototypes, do you think that one day we will all wear clothes equipped with solar panels in our everyday life? We’re not very far away from people actually wearing these garments that I design. I think it’s important to see which technologies are really ready to be implemented, how people would deal with them, how people would feel in those clothes, what it could mean to them. And of course looking at the cost of these technologies. If you’re integrating 80 solar cells then of course you’re adding to the cost and you have to look at how much people are willing to pay for it. Its’ a long road to travel still. But I think through a lot of research and development we can get to a marketable product.
“PINKO HYBRID EXPERIENCE” By Cristina Giannini Mattia Vismara
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e are in the era of scientific progress, in which technology officially takes part in our life, simplifying and improving daily actions. Nowadays innovations surround us, we know how to use them at best, making them our great assistant, but as every innovation, they have their negative sides. Very often we are depending on them, completely hypnotized, as though they were essential for every kind of work we have to do. We’ve lost the taste and the pleasure of little actions, such as flipping through the pages of our grandmother’s recipe book, writing a letter and similar simple things. We are slaves, but we have to realize that technology, although essential in some sectors, has to be exploited and used to take advantages from it, not a dependence.
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A well known brand that has been able to use technology in the best way is Pinko, that has come up with an innovative idea: the new boutique Hybrid Shop, which wisely mixes the e-shopping with the classic street shopping, with its sensorial charm of accessories and clothes, personally seen and touched. How is this possible?! Thanks to an actual digital room, equipped with screens, it is possible to explore, through pictures, the entire collection, discovering its variations, accessories and matches. It’s surprising that there is the possibility to touch the chosen item, but also to buy one that is not available in the store, because every Hybrid Shop has a central warehouse equipped of the whole collection, so the customer will receive its purchase directly at home in a very short time. A project that shows how the brand is constantly growing, surprising its own customers, which with the help of practical touch screens can have access to the extended selection of clothes, which helps them in the choice and the purchase, but first of all offers them a wider range of choice than a classic store. Through this idea Pinko changes the shopping experience, revolutionizing the selling methods and confirming its own innovative sense, with a new boutique formula able to combine immateriality, immediacy, the ever changing nature of virtual with the concrete seduction of reality. So, the right pair of love for tradition and passion for progress.
JOSHUA ABARBANEL Artist and digital media professor. By Angelica Grittani Selena Magni
“Logic brings you from A to B. Imagination brings you anywhere.” Albert Einstein
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he beauty of nature, the weirdest shapes that represent the human being and life in its every manifestation: the artist from Los Angeles Joshua Abarbanel draws his inspiration from all this and explains us how his passion lead him to study art and to specialize in the technique of moulding clay, teaching it as well, driven also by his interest for biology and the living nature. Then, thanks to his interest for technology, he started teaching digital media, discovering a reality that brings you intimately close to his world and that can change the essence of things.
Your artistic and dreaming ‘creatures’ are almost alive. Explain us your interest in biological structures and natural creatures and how you represent them. All of my life I have been fascinated by forms in nature. I’m especially interested in the similarities between tiny, microscopic images and vast, macroscopic vistas, and how we see some of the same structures in many different biological forms. I find inspiration in fractal patterns, accretive structures, and the Fibonacci sequence, all of which one finds in plants (leaves, pine cones, and seed pods), animals (rams’ horns, for example), and in marine life (such as the exponential growth of Nautilus shells). So in my work, I utilize some of these forms as jumping-off points to create metaphors for all relationships—between people, between individuals and communities, between humankind and the planet—and to consider how disparate parts can come together to make a whole in sometimes beautiful and startling ways. Why do you choose to work with wood? Is there some particular meaning? I think people relate to wood as a natural and warm material, and the grains add a depth and richness on many levels. I like the fact that the wood grain is a record of the passage of time, and also that the patterns invoke a sense of the flow of water that nourished the plant. But I work in other materials, as well. I have a degree in ceramics so obviously I’ve done a lot of work in clay, and I’ve also made several series of digital prints, including some on which I have added layers of paper cuts and other materials. Your last work is combined with laser effects and wood. Can you explain us this technique? In this new series of work, called See Life, I design the layers of shapes using a computer, and then the shapes are cut with a laser cutter or CNC machine. From there I hand finish the pieces using a variety of techniques (routing, sanding, staining, etc.), I hand assemble them, and then I arrange and layer those individual built sculptures into compositions until I feel they are right.
When did you decide to study art? My mother was an art teacher and my father was an anthropologist, so I’ve been surrounded by art and culture my whole life. I remember once as a child my family was driving on a highway and ahead of us there was a truck hauling sewer pipes. We were staring ahead at the back ends of the stacked pipes, which created a field of circles, and my mom pointed out to me the negative space, the little diamonds created in between the circles. To suddenly see a pattern of which I was previously unaware was a revelation. That has obviously stuck with me! So when I went to college at the University of California at Berkeley, I studied fine art (as well as psychology), and then later I received a Masters in Fine Art from UCLA. Why did you move to United States? My parents are American, and I was born and lived in England while my father was pursuing his PhD at the University of Manchester. So when he was done with his studies there and field research, we moved to Los Angeles, where my parents had met. You are also a professor of digital media: do you think that art is a powerful message? Certainly, I think art is one of the most powerful forms of communication. Just like dance, literature and music, visual art can express truths that are both personal and universal at the same time, and that’s rare. When did you start using computer to create your pieces? When I graduated from UCLA in 1993 and started to teach, there were not many college-level teaching jobs in ceramics, which was my field of study. But digital technology was burgeoning, and so, somewhat reluctantly, I learned how to use it since there were many more positions in that field. Around 2000 I began to create abstract, two-dimensional work that was utilized digital tools. Even in those earlier works you can see evidence of the patterning, layering, and shapes that are integral to my current work. Three years ago I returned to making sculpture, this time incorporating the computer to make some components and then largely refining and building the rest by hand. Now I feel I have a good marriage of technology and more traditional kinds of art making.
What’s your main purpose by creating art and new shapes? I have found that artists make art because they have to. It’s just what I do. For many years I have worked to make objects that speak to people about life, death, humanity, and our relationship to one another. I feel that many artists, whether they are writers or musicians or visual artists, continually tell different versions of the same story. Mine is about seeing the unseen, and paying attention to the interconnections of all life forms and having awe for those relationships. Are you working on something new that you want to share with us? Since my solo show at Hinge Parallel Gallery in Culver City, California just closed, I’m working on a few commissions that resulted from it. I also have two pieces in an upcoming exhibition called Veranda: Contemplating Spaces in Between at the Japanese Cultural & Community Center in Los Angeles from August 21-September 9, 2014. And further down the road, I suspect I will explore injecting a little color into these wood bas-reliefs I’ve been creating.
PH GAUTHIER GALLET
Technology adopts art and art uses technology. There are no limits for these two worlds. The genius of engineers and technicians gives life to a new art, changing rules and methods.
“I paint what I cannot photograph. I photograph what I don’t want to paint. I paint the invisible and photograph the visible..” Man Ray
Technology has art woven inside, since it derives from the Greek technè, which defines art as know-how and logos, discourse. This bond has always existed, as technology is an instrument that art uses to provide artists with necessary tools to represent their skills. At the same time, art drives technology further into the research of advanced techniques and instruments, to its own highest expression.
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