Our entire everyday life consists of three-dimensionality, of matter that can be perceived by the senses. Our bodies, our clothes, our morning cup of coffee, the front door and everything that happens to us every day until we finally climb back into the cosy, soft, warm feathers of our bed in the evening. We need mass and space like we need air to breathe. They are mutually dependent. Since the Stone Age, we humans have been consciously designing things and spaces. Our everyday lives are shaped by designed objects; we shape them and they shape us. We move between them and travel with them through space and time.

Whether stone axe, fetish, jewellery, car, sculpture or architecture: volume, dimensions, form, proportion, material properties and construction are essential ingredients for three-dimensional design. Ultimately, we find things interesting, exciting or simply ‘beautiful’ because their material, plastic and spatial design entices, surprises and fascinates us sensually. If all goes well, they may encourage us to take a closer look and reflect further. Sometimes this is precisely because they astonish, confuse and unsettle us in our previous experience. It is quite possible that this is art.

The plastic exercises for the 1st and 2nd years of study focus on the ‘ingredients’ involved in dealing with mass and space, on conscious interaction with form, material and simple techniques, on plastic and spatial vision and comprehension with all the senses. On making, experiencing, learning, experimenting, failing, changing, seeing, bending, folding, destroying, chipping, applying, sawing, pushing, thinking, holding, building, grinding, smelling, dusting, gluing, touching, illuminating, observing, photographing, dismantling, casting, measuring, sweating, assembling, tearing, screwing, sewing, dragging, stabbing, connecting, cutting, feeling, hearing, ...

Prof. Rolf Wicker