Erin Smith

As the physical and digital worlds increasingly intertwine, through clay and other mediums, I explore the transformations that occur between the two.  Technologies such as scanning and 3D printing find their way into my work, these moments where the physical is translated to digital and vice versa are of importance. While translating the digital into clay, the physical realities of the material become more apparent; gravity, cracks, and slumping are all embraced as part of this transformation. 

Our current digital technologies and their shortcomings are of particular interest. In the moment where a 3D scan fails to capture accurately or a printer generates support in order to create an object, these deficits and discrepancies of our current capabilities become generative of new form. It is within the unknown space, the lost information, the in-between, that a void is created and this void offers the space and opportunity for new relationships to form. This is where I find my current work, navigating the edges of destruction and construction, ideas that morph through translation and iteration. My most recent work is the result of an exploration of these translations. I embrace and utilize these digital shortcomings as markings of time.