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London designer Dominic Wilcox shares his thoughts on 3D printing and presents some of his “fun, crazy” projects including GPS shoes, a combined coffin and desk and a reserve bungee jump in this movie we filmed at 100% Design. “We shouldn’t be so scared of putting out ridiculous thoughts,” he says.
“I think we’re all very tight and worried about what people think,” Wilcox explains. “But actually fun, crazy ideas – maybe something else comes out of them.”
Wilcox introduces the first of five images he chose for the talk, which shows pictures taken while creating his Sounds of Making in East London record; an alternative east London Olympic souvenir. “We have a huge amount of creative makers,” he says. “What I decided to do was to celebrate that fact and so I visited 21 historical, skillful, creative makers and simply recorded the sound of them making, of them working.”
The next image is a montage of his races against a 3D printer earlier this year, when he beat the machine on two occasions. “The ironic thing about rapid prototyping is how slow it is,” he comments. He’s also sceptical about the usefulness of 3D printers: “I think if the quality goes up and the price comes down then a lot of people will get them,” he predicts, but asks “do we really want people at home printing off a load of rubbish?”
Wilcox then explains some of his illustrations from the Variations on Normal series, including a family poncho, shoes for walking up hills and a reverse bungee jump. “In my sketchbooks I’ve got lot of inventions, or just ideas of things,” he says. “It’s just an alternative way of thinking.”
Another of those ideas is his No Place Like Home GPS shoes that were inspired by Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. “When she clicks her heels together she gets transported back to Kansas and I thought, ‘is it possible to make that real in some way?'” he says.
Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place as part of the talks programme at design exhibition 100% Design during this year’s London Design Festival.
See more of Dezeen’s architecture and design movies here: http://www.dezeen.com/tag/dezeen-movies/
