Robotic Clay

The 8-Second Brick Project, a site-specific installation for the exhibition Robotic Clay: New Methods in Architectural Ceramics, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery was curated by James Clark-Hicks, Isabel Ochoa & David Correa (School of Architecture, University of Waterloo), June 3rd – Sept. 10th, 2023.

*The exhibition and part of my installation was featured in Canadian Architect, Exhibition explores role of robotics and 3D printing in architectural ceramics.

Project Description:

The 8-Second Brick Project is a response to the Medicine Hat Brick & Tile company, which began operating in 1886 and remained open until a catastrophic flood forced them to close in 2010. Eight seconds references the time it took the factory to extrude and press four bricks. My primary expertise is in print media and with this project I was interested in exploring the relationship between 3D clay printing, traditional woodblock printing to emboss clay tiles, and atmospheric firing. It is a generative grid-based system that takes advantage of variations within the repeated multiple. Similar to methods employed in patchwork quilting, it looks to salvaged materials to complete the design. The project was developed during an artist residency at Medalta in the Historic Clay District (Medicine Hat, Alberta). As such, it speaks to the haptic qualities of the historic, used, and handmade, alongside traces of the machine.

In winter 2022, I audited David Correa’s Material Syntax course offered by The University of Waterloo School of Architecture exploring 3D clay printing and masonry. The project from the class, made in collaboration Adrian Chiu and Laila Mourad, was called COOL(ING) FACADE—see video at the bottom.

Full disclosure, at first I was not stoked to learn about bricks. It was the 3D clay printing that drew me in. However, somewhere in the middle I experienced a paradigm shift, as I realized the potential of a masonry system—the power of a modular approach that lets you build up and out. It made me re-think my studio practice. The outcome was my first set of hand-carved wooden blocks, a 6” square system that can be rotated and stacked. I think of the blocks as an alphabet, printed letters that form visual sentences. This vocabulary was then brought back to ceramics, informing the design of the tiles and 3D printed bricks. So what was my takeaway? You can learn a lot about the handmade from a robot.