Graphic Material

Graphic Material, held at the UTS Gallery from 3 August - 3 September, 2010, explored the impact of new materials and digital fabrication technologies on graphic design practice. The question posed through the exhibition was: How are new technologies transforming graphic design? Design disciplines are often conceptualised in terms of their material output. For visual communicators this is seen as a concern with two-dimensional print and screen. However, new directions in practice, motivated in part by new production technologies, are challenging this assumption. Conventionally the preserve of other disciplines, digital fabrication techniques are increasingly available to the curious graphic designer. Practitioners are utilising these tools â as well as the conceptual reappraisal they encourage â to explore the material and sculptural boundaries of their discipline. Freed from the constraints of ink-on-paper and pixel-on-screen the work of these designers extends the relationship between the computer and physical world in remarkable ways. New kinds of hybrid artefacts, part digital, part material, are the result. Graphic Material explored this âdigital materialityâ through the exhibition of commissioned and existing works by an international selection of designers. Robot drawing machines, electronic posters and computationally-evolved typography describe just some of the innovative works surveyed in this exhibition by designers including: Collider, Vince Frost, Graphic Thought Facility, Jürg Lehni, Mark Gowing, Postspectacular, Sabrina Raaf, Bert Simons, Ian Stevenson, Toko, Trigger and Jeremy Wood and myself. Graphic Material was a satellite event of Sydney Design 10. It featured a public program including panel discussions and curator floortalk. Hugely successful with audiences, over 5,000 people visited the show, making it the best attended exhibition in the history of the gallery