Bloko748

Bloko 748, the artistic duo composed of Victor Miklos and Antonio Davanzo, fuse highly calibrated tools such as 3D printing  with inventively daring handcraft. Resins drip, finishes are sprayed, colors look hazardous, forms are looped and knotted and  hacked into shape in a way that suggests not so much the making of furniture as a loosely coordinated attempt to keep a ship  afloat during a storm—cobbling together all manner of materials and coatings into ad hoc forms which might, in some way, plug  the leak. The fact that their stuff works, that it fulfills the function requirements of its typological referent, seems, from the perspective of traditional craft, simply outrageous. And yet, behind their steroidal synthetic techniques lies a program of rigorous  experimentation and a keen instinct for the nuances of composite engineering–the way that fabric can bolster the strength of  resin, the way that resin can lend rigidity to a fabric. 

Furniture usually points towards a function. Bloko748’ work backflips, somersaults, and lands on functionality with a single  foot. By harnessing their sculptural energies to the typological forms of furniture the artists suggest that even the most prosaic  environments can be made explosive, exciting, and aesthetically shattering–that the upheavals we now go to art galleries expecting to see can be refreshed by being insinuated into waiting rooms, around conference tables, and before writing desks. 

An exemplary instance of their artistic process can be found in Hound, a spotlight. First the artists 3D printed a quadrupedal  base supporting a cylindrical torso. Then they began to assault it with torches and hot knives, carving, melting, and wounding  its plastic skin. Unsatisfied with their pristine, digitally derived model, they felt the need for a final cathartic modulation by manual action.