Ceramics, clay vessels, the working of earth into our daily functional objects, these are all synonymous with ‘human touch’ through traditions stretching back to our evolutionary horizon line.  This 'human touch’ together with later traditions such as metal forging, was industrialized to meet a growing organized population's growth. The machine age oversaw the duplication through the production of the simple ceramic bodies that aid us in our daily endeavours.

 

A curious dissonance is evident as ceramics proceed to be technologically pumped:  High voltage insulators on power lines, space shuttle tileing, foamed ceramics or razor-sharp ceramic kitchen knives. There is a parting not only with the 'human touch' and form but with material characteristics as well.

 

As computer age technology advances, we find it increasingly embedded in our familiar home environment: computer chips implanted in our pet dogs, smart refrigerators that let us know when the milk has gone bad and window panes that, through LCD technology, switch from clear to opaque when an electrical current is passed through them. How long before a cafe’s espresso mug broadcasts its impending emptiness to the nearest waiter?

 

Culture blatantly expressed itself through the applicative decoration of tableware.  From elaborate floral motifs to blue windmills, an empty plate was never empty.  From ‘human touch’  brush strokes to silk-screening or tampon-printing, decoration was part of dinner.  With the exception of the modernist rejection of decoration-per-se or philosophical-based minimalism, leaving a mark seems to be in our nature (or in the later cases, not leaving a mark, as a mark into itself).

 

It is against this backdrop that we present our concept hot plate project: + / - .

 

We use the conductive properties of silk-screened gold or "amorphic metal" films in the same manner printed circuit boards or car windshield defrosters work.  Hookup the plate to an electrical source, the current will run through the "decoration" keeping food stuff warm.  Ornate graphic patterns are given "function"- in the most modernist sense of the word.  The technology not only ‘does-its-work’, but adds a new dimension to a familiar face.  We choose not to let the technology fade invisibly into the product,  but rather let the new ingredient coax floral patterns into blooming, facilitate change. Changes whose graphic logic hints at its technical base.

 

Product designers by profession, we have always chosen to spread our activity over a vast design plane.  From the very disciplined arena of product development in the medical field to custom furniture; from deductive exhibitions to packaging concepts.  It is our firm belief that the transferral of a fresh look at things, the diffusion of ideas/materials as well as technical solutions, from one area of design to another yields a richer outcome.  The "+ / - " hot plate is the outcome of just such an overlap of disciplines.

 

Bon Appetit !