Katja Prins, Netherlands

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(in) – Somnium
In my practice, I reflect on my fascination for the relationship between technology and the human body. I am interested in the ambivalence, contradictions, the thin line between good and bad, improvement and danger, the uncanny valley of the familiar and the unknown. The simultaneously “healing-protective and toxic-destructive” properties of technology both worry and excite me. It provides me with imagery and ideas for a fluid boundless world where man and technology are hybrid, where the human body and the network merge and entangle one another in a structure of systems; unclear where one ends and the other begins.
This hybridity between man and machine is also being reflected in my way of working and designing this new collection.
I started using 3D printing and designed my forms with the Anarkik3DDesign program, which works with a special haptic device and which gave me a real sense of touch and movement in the virtual environment. By using this device I was able to feel the 3 dimensionality and texture of my forms, (de)form them intuitivly by pushing and pulling them, even go inside my forms and work in the same intuitive way as if I was working with clay and my bare hands.
Later on I combined the forms with the silver elements, which added another layer of hybridity; traditional goldsmithing craft in combination with the latest 3D printing technologies.