Centre Pomidou: Mutations-Créations / Imprimer le monde

Digital technologies have revolutionised design and production, transforming the practice of architects, designers and artists. What is the status of the author-creator in the age of non-standard production and its unique but industrially manufactured objects? What is the status of the 3D-printed object, simultaneously everyday object, technological product, work of art, designer item, and architectural prototype? How come the digital age has seen it spread to every field of production? Described as a disruptive technology, 3D printing has become widely diffused over the last decade and a half, thanks open-source-software-based platforms, adopted throughout industry from aeronautics to biotechnology.

From the designer object to architectural prototype, from the production shop to innovative research projects, this exhibition brings together a younger generation of artists, designers and architects who make use of 3D printing as an analytical and experimental tool. In its selection of some thirty “creators”, Imprimer le monde [Printing the World] reveals the transformation of forms within a “digital materiality” that has given birth to a new typology of objects having 3D printing in common. Centre Pompidou presented The Butterfly Screen and the Adaptation Chair during this exhibition.

The Adaptation Chair became part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou.