I work with plaster casting molds to create unusual shapes in ceramics. Rather than design an object directly first, then build a mold around it, I design the separation planes of the mold first, allowing their interactions to govern what shapes are possible. The result is a set of interlocking plaster pieces for which any missing number of pieces is the "final object" of the casting.
An example of the process is shown below in the poster I made for the conference. For more details, look at the pretty pictures in the paper, linked below.
The overall result is not nearly so academic: I plan to use these techniques to design a series of functional wares and lighting fixtures, to be presented sometime in 2016.
Links:
The paper was presented at the Generative Art Conference in Rome, Italy, in December 2014. Lot of pretty pictures of different types of plaster structures that would work as ceramics casting molds.
The poster shown below was fun to make and gave people a quick glance at a sculpture being made, from start to finish. Link to the larger version for details.
