A pot : experiments with clay + gen AI
digital ceramics, 2024 - ongoing
This ongoing collaboration with ceramicist Anna Andersen explores generative AI as a design tool in ceramic practice. Using the archetypal prompt "a pot"—a form humans have created since prehistoric times—we test both corporate and open-source AI models that generate 3D objects from image and text prompts. Our central question asks if the use of generative AI can enhance our creative practice without undercutting the hands-on, material knowledge that defines ceramic work.
Our process positions AI as a collaborative ideation tool, not as a tool for optimization or a replacement for human craftsmanship. In the studio we generate and critically evaluate hundreds of AI outputs, selecting only forms that we feel have creative potential, or spark new design ideas. Each digital sketch is a starting point; they are altered, remixed and interpreted through our design sensibilities, our understanding of clay's material properties, structural limitations, and firing behaviors. The meaningful work happens in translating the digital to the physical through a hybrid process of 3D printing and hand-sculpting, skills we have each developed over years of practice. Our approach in A pot experiments with how emerging technologies could expand creative possibilities within traditional ways of working that center tactility, intuition and the human.
A pot has recieved development support from Nationalbankens Jubilaeumsfond.
Our process positions AI as a collaborative ideation tool, not as a tool for optimization or a replacement for human craftsmanship. In the studio we generate and critically evaluate hundreds of AI outputs, selecting only forms that we feel have creative potential, or spark new design ideas. Each digital sketch is a starting point; they are altered, remixed and interpreted through our design sensibilities, our understanding of clay's material properties, structural limitations, and firing behaviors. The meaningful work happens in translating the digital to the physical through a hybrid process of 3D printing and hand-sculpting, skills we have each developed over years of practice. Our approach in A pot experiments with how emerging technologies could expand creative possibilities within traditional ways of working that center tactility, intuition and the human.
A pot has recieved development support from Nationalbankens Jubilaeumsfond.
A pot with handles, 3D-printed red clay.
Vase with necks, 3D-printed red clay.
Double Amphora, 3D-printed red clay.
A pot with handles (v2), 3D-printed red clay, glaze.
A cup with handles, 3D-printed red clay with engobe wash.
Amphora, 3D-printed red clay with engobe wash.
Round container, 3D-printed mixed clay, glaze.
Detail.
Moon jar, 3D=printed red clay, glaze.
AI-generated model of “a pot”.
AI-generated model of “a pot”.
AI-generated model of “a pot”.
AI-generated model of “a pot”.
AI-generated model of “a pot”.
Model 3D-printed in black clay. The handle was redesigned digitally to make it a 3D-printable shape.
Some of our first 3D models, generated from the prompt “a pot”.
Glazing one of the models, 3D-printed in red clay.
Beaker, 3D-printed red clay, slip wash, glaze.