Materialise combines art and technology by using its high-tech background toproduce this series of exceptional lampshades. Our exclusive lamps are created through prototyping techniques – stereo lithography and selective laser sintering – that offer almost unlimited freedom of design. Our aim is to unleash a new era of mass customized design based on this technology. Our 15 years experience with rapid prototyping technology and software enables us to meet the customer’s wildest dreams for mass-customized consumer products. With today’s high-performance computed 3D systems and the increasing usage of unlimited e-communication we can undoubtedly fulfill our end user’s design and manufacture requirements. For those unfamiliar with rapid prototyping technologies, it is easy to depict this technology by comparing it with familiar inkjet printing. Instead of building up a text, this technology actually constructs a 3D object by adding one slice on top of another in a vessel of liquid polymer (for stereo lithography) or powder (for selective laser sintering) that hardens when struck by a laser beam. With the software developed by Materialize and with 3-dimensional printing technology it has now become possible to translate 3D visual effects into actual 3D material structure. The Materialize software guides designers through their product development process. The CAD file of the design should first be transformed into an STL-file to make the use of rapid prototyping techniques accessible. Magics, our indoor developed software, turns the original file into an STL-file and offers a whole range of functions to correct any mistakes that may be created during the conversion. To assist with the preparation of files for the rapid prototyping process, Magics uses very advanced and automated functions. Magics is an indispensable software tool that helps to achieve high-quality rapid prototyping objects. You might be wondering why Materialize products are named with the *.mgx extension? *.mgx is the file extension for Magics software. Each product produced by Materialise is represented by an *.mgx file which is added to the product on a CD Rom. One can reproduce a design by sending the product’s *.mgx file to Materialise. Perhaps it will not be in the far future when data will be used to replace 3D objects. For example, it might be possible to download products from the web in the same manner as mp3s are being downloaded today. MGX’s Brand Philosophy is based on dynamic and total transformative experience. It allows designers, engineers and manufacturers alike to explore the infinite possibilities of 3D Printing, in a new and dynamic way. MGX provides an innovative approach in bridging the gap between idea and reality by making it possible to materialize whatever you dream.
MGX by Materialise recently celebrated its fifth birthday and at that time, recognised a transition in its international market: the growing recognition of digital eminence and creation; the dissolution of interdisciplinary borders; the formation of a cross-market between art and design; and the development of an economic awareness that is engaged with social and environmental change. This transition reflects both micro and macro elements. Elements which envelop this year’s collection theme: “e-volution”. In this age, we can no longer ignore our digital entanglement and our everyday dependence on technology. The simplest aspects of life, from commuting, working and purchasing food, to communicating with friends and travelling, will all become hindered with the slightest electrical breakdown. As the human population continues to grow, our lives will grow to depend even further on computer communication systems, their availability and the new digital elite. It was not so long ago that computers entered our society. However, now that they have, their influence has reached a level of totality; along with them, we have evolved in our everyday behaviour, both integrating them into the most mundane of tasks while continuing to push the boundaries of what is digitally feasible. .MGX was born out of this technological environment. And as we operate daily and strive forward in the fields of design and art – two aesthetically focused areas – we are forced to question the evolution of beauty in this new age. Aesthetics, as defined by Immanuel Kant (1790), is a sensory, emotional and intellectual judgment of beauty. Viewer interpretations of beauty possess two concepts: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty, whereas taste is a result of education, social culture, and an awareness of elite class values. According to Kant, beauty is objective and universal, and thus, certain things are beautiful to everyone. Beauty, we have been told, is “in the eye of the beholder”. This is an aphorism which suggests that everyone or every product, no matter what they look like, has the potential to be seen as beautiful. Unfortunately, scientific research confirms Kant’s theory, and shows the opposite to be true. Most people have a very clear idea about what is and what is not beautiful; the human brain, (of both men and women), can evaluate beauty in fewer than 150 milliseconds, and to an extent of universal agreement. Research findings suggest that we are all born with, and carry an innate “beauty sense”. In search of the rule of aesthetic success, and the symmetry of beauty, Sir Francis Galton (cousin and collaborator of Charles Darwin), found that the single face which emerges from the combined images of several faces is almost always aesthetically pleasing. Why should a combination of many faces create beauty rather than just chaotic ugliness? (“Hallucinating Beauty “, Dr. Frank Tallis). In the context of evolutionary theory, facial symmetry is the best and most reliable indicator of health. Thus, our ‘beauty sense’ is really a genetic ra dar. William Shenstone wrote in his book “The Works, Verse and Prose”: “A perfectly healthful form , is a perfectly beautiful form, health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty”.
“Intuitively, we would expect that beauty in a statistic deviation, would be found on the right extent, outside the center of a normal bell curve. The notion that top models are the best expression of the average and most balanced symmetry could seem too mundane. However, Galton’s experiment supports the idea that statistic deviation parameters applied to beauty, act with a regression towards the mean. This radical finding substantiates the possibility that beauty can be formulated, and defined in a mathematical order, with the mean perhaps illustrating the original intent of the genetic information, and acting as the closest correct expression of the balanced human code? Beauty has always been viewed as something mysterious and intangible; a semi-divine property not amenable to scientific investigation. Yet the mathematical tools that determine beauty are gradually being understood. We may eventually be able to capture the essence of beauty in an algorithm. The new .MGX by Materialise collection refers to these topics. At .MGX, with 3D additive layered fabrication on an all digital platform, we are able to create something out of nothing. We operate in an all digital driven industry, by transforming data files (or as we like to call them “product DNA’s”) into material tangible goods – to the extent that we can shape the mathematical structures that computers and creative minds can compose. Our 3D digital printing techniques allow for unlimited possibilities.With the advantages that can be attained today by computational tools, we encapsulate a certain ambition when we try to reveal the cognitive capacity of aesthetics. All that we compose in 3D software is based on algorithmic values. Form follows function (and in our case, this dictum refers to the mathematical function). Knowing today’s psychology, Fibonacci’s research, and that of many others who followed him, our aim is to compose the formula that would hold the essence of our time and beauty to its max. When digital mathematics and 3D graphics are able to match and resonate with our human organic rhythm and innate aesthetic proportions, magic appears”. Naomi Kaempfer (Creative Director and Head of the .MGX by Materialise division).
