A machine that manufactures one of a kind pottery ware, by leaving its unique handprint on each creation.

Industrial one of is an ongoing project that examines the feasibility of “one of a kind” industrial manufacturing.

For me, the world of ceramics was fertile ground for exploring this issue, since it contains the two extremes: The most industrial aspects, and the craftiest aspects, which exist side by side. In the world that we live in today, multidimensional, cooperative and global, I believe that the two worlds do not have to remain separate, and that we have the tools to connect them.

From the craft world, I took the spirit, the values, the sensations and the formal character, From the industrial world, I took the methods of production, the technology, and the machinery. When combined together, they create a new manufacturing method that is very characteristic of our time period – innovation alongside uniqueness. Continue reading..

At the center of the project stands a machine, that manufactures one of a kind pottery ware. The machine is a take on a traditional ceramic jigger. This adaptation was made after thorough observation and analysis of the industrial production of ceramic tableware.

Industrial one of attempts to anthropomorphize the machine, so the results will seem closer to the way a person would have crafted them. An artisan, even the best one, is not a machine, and his movements while sculpting material are never perfect. The imperfections of handmade products are the main reason for their desirable and rare beauty. They echo the time during which the material was in the artist’s hands, a one-time occurrence, in which a one of a kind shape is created that can never be replicated.

The machine is programmed to insert its own individual mark on the pottery wares it produces, a different mark each time, the same way a potter leaves his handprint on his creations.

The first presented series of Industrial one of, “Machine’s handmade”, was made to demonstrate the machine’s versatility. “By changing the parameters and the limits of the code, I was able to make the machine ‘behave’ like different characters - gentle, aggressive or lazy - which directly influenced the morphology of the series the machine is making”.

The same manufacturing run (same code with the same exact parameters) produces pottery “siblings”, pottery ware that look like they came from the same production line, but the code makes each one distinguishable. Every piece produced is one of a kind.

The string moves up and down tens of times, and thus creates waves on the clay’s surface. This technology creates a unique aesthetic that tells the manufacturing story and provides a mechanical interpretation of the sculptor’s hands.

The first series of the “Industrial one of” project was developed as Ofri’s graduation project at HIT, Holon Institute of Technology, Industrial Design Department.

Industrial one of 2.0 explores the ceramic ornament. In this series the machine was given a new role - creating the graphic illustration on the edges of the plates. Each plate was carved from one of many identical layered masses of clay - created from clay layers in different natural colors. The string’s unique movement, different each time, cut through the clay’s surface, revealing a one of a kind ornament each time.

First presented in "Shibush" exhibition - "Vitrina" gallery Holon, 2018.

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Industrial one of 3.0 explores the post-industrial, anti-serial, coded, and singular era. The starting point for this reserch was ceramic ware, products of the industrial world, from various factories worldwide (Rosenthal, Wedgwood, Herend, IKEA, and Villeroy & Boch) due to their unique international status and high standing in European culture, as well as their personal significance in my extended family's vitrines. Their reproduction by the machine and its operating algorithm infuses them with a new interpretation, eliciting questions: What would be the language of these factories in the future? What will the language of craft look like in tomorrow's world, and what will the new meaning of art and design be in the post-industrial age?

First presented in Industrial One Of 3.0 - Jerusalem Artists’ House, 2020

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One of a kind drawing by machine on ceramic tiles. The work presents a point in time. Opportunity to stop and look at a process, at a stage of search which is sometimes more interesting than the end result. The work presents our (the creators of the machine) and the machine learning graph in the process of creating a code that allows it to draw botanical decorations on ceramics. The presentation of the process seeks to ask what an industrial interpretation of hand print might look like ,and what will be a suitable aesthetic for it.

V.JERU.002 is a series made for the Jerusalem Design week 2018, with the use of “local material”- symbols and characteristics of the city, as the raw material for manufacturing. These symbols were picked and merged into the raw clay as graphic ornaments. Each symbol was embedded in a mass of clay of which a series of plates was made. This technique enabled samples of colors and shapes from all over the city to become an ornament of Jerusalem and an integral part of the “local material”. The Random and uncontrolled aspects during the whole manufacturing process assured that the ornament, like the shape of the plate, will be one of a kind.

First presented in "Pro Jerusalem" - Jerusalem Design week, 2018.

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