×

Subscribe to our newsletter

Highlights From the Previous Week, Partnered Events and Haikus. View our Newsletter archive

Bastiaan de Nennie at Roehrs & Boetsch

Blending Presences is the first solo exhibition of Bastiaan de Nennie’s whimsical and existential phygital creations, at Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch in Zurich until July 22.

Scroll right to read more ›
Text by

“By conserving the shape of dying products from nature – like vegetables and fruits – in a digital form and giving them a soul by some small digital cosmetic surgery, an aubergine or a banana become immortal,” says Bastiaan de Nennie, a Design Academy Eindhoven graduate who has rapidly become renowned for his sculptural work at the frontier between physical and digital.

De Nennie 3D-scans familiar objects from our pre-digital reality, objects that epitomise banality, and uses their forms, colours and textures as components to build a new digital reality. The computer-remixed objects manifest again as 3D-printed sculptures. The bright colours and humorous forms appear whimsical at first, but De Nennie also raises unsettling questions about the nature of being and the relationship between human and machine, not unlike the existential questions raised in the newly remade film Ghost In The Shell.

For De Nennie, the 3D-printed sculptures are mortal bodies with immortal digital souls, as in his new work Corpo-real Identities series : “Corpo-real Identities are characters, with each their own soul. The scanned bodies of their ancestors are the guideline for their appearance – the saddle of a bicycle, a pair of sneakers, a fire hydrant, the radiator grill of a car. Their spiritual state changes while going through an objectifying virtual computer-based process, before being born by the 3D-printer.”

It is the ghosts in the design shell that De Nennie’s first solo exhibition, Blending Presences, surfaces at Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch in Zurich until July 22.

Bastiaan de Nennie with Big Boya, 3D-printed PLA, 40 x 40 x 155 cm. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Bastiaan de Nennie with Big Boya, 3D-printed PLA, 40 x 40 x 155 cm. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
The Good, The Bad, The Maria, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
The Good, The Bad, The Maria, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Wise Nose, 3D-printed PLA, 28 x 32 x 105 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Wise Nose, 3D-printed PLA, 28 x 32 x 105 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
iLeave or iStay, Wise Nose, I Saddle Down, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
iLeave or iStay, Wise Nose, I Saddle Down, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Handina, 3D-printed PLA, 35 x 23 x 62 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Handina, 3D-printed PLA, 35 x 23 x 62 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Champie, Avocado With The Belly Button, Flatnut, Granny Smith, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Champie, Avocado With The Belly Button, Flatnut, Granny Smith, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Muscari Botryoides, 3D-printed PLA, 25 x 25 x 66 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Muscari Botryoides, 3D-printed PLA, 25 x 25 x 66 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Muscari Botryoides, L’Escargot, Mechienje, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Muscari Botryoides, L’Escargot, Mechienje, 3D-printed PLA. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Mechienje, 3D-printed PLA, 28 x 30 x 45 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Mechienje, 3D-printed PLA, 28 x 30 x 45 cm. Photo: Jeroen van der Wielen. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Blending Presences installation view. Photo: Michael Dellefant. Courtesy of Gallery Roehrs & Boetsch.
Back

Articles you also might like

The fourth edition of the Design Biennale Zurich opened on September 1st with a series of exhibitions dedicated to the small and large changes that effect our daily lives – whether that is connected to objects, society or climate change. The exhibition is on view through September 19th.

Last fall, Pao Hui Kao spoke with Oscar Duboÿ for our A/W 2022 issue: TLmag38: Origin. She is currently showing a selection of work, including pieces from the Original Paper Pleats series and the Urushi Paper Pleats series, as part of the exhibition, “Interlude”, at Spazio Nobile Gallery.