​​How new tech can spark innovations for even the most established artists

As a creative person, how do you maintain a sense of freshness in your work? How do you ensure you don’t keep pumping out the same old processes with the same old line of ideation accompanying the concept in every project? These lingering questions circle the minds of many creatives. For Lucy Hardcastle, the founding designer of a multidisciplinary design studio in London, the answer is simple. “Working with a new machine always provides a fresh palate or new perspective on how you work,” she tells us. The proof is in the pudding for this pioneer of interactive technologies, 3D visuals and moving image. Here, Lucy tells us about the three new artworks she’s created using the ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro and how the new tech sparked brand new innovation for the established digital artist.

The new machine features a number of new and improved features to realise any artworks in need of complex rendering. A one-stop high performance laptop, Acer’s new ConceptD is ideal for any professional 3D or digital artist looking to maximise speed and responsiveness. Highly portable, the machine is designed for increased versatility. The product can be used in six different modes depending on the size of the collaboration and new precision drawing technology is also available with Wacom EMR pen technology. To top it all off, efficiency is streamlined with powerful image processing, drastically reducing rendering time to in turn, ensure creativity is prioritised.

Lucy is known for her sensual, “phygital” creations which heighten our senses and in turn, form a direct connection between viewer and artwork. Creating immersive virtual worlds that combine the principles of craftsmanship with the possibilities of technology, she’s worked with the likes of Chanel, Nike and Alexander Wang (just to name a few) while her works have also been exhibited at London Design Festival and the V&A. Illusions, texture and sound play a key part in producing the delicate balance of tingles which run up and down the body when watching her works. “A great deal of my work is spawned out of the lack of tactility we experience from facing flat screens for most of our day,” she tells us. Interestingly, Lucy finds daring ways to reconnect our vision and touch. “I believe those particular senses can carry associations, references and memories in both the real and ‘remembered’ worlds,” she adds, “and that creates a kind of sensorial familiarity.”

In Squidge, Lucy plays with the idea of an artwork’s traditional setting, the plinth. But this is no ordinary plinth. There is a twist in the story, as the artist points out: “the object presented is abstract, somewhat alien and has a mind of its own in terms of movement.” Initially, Lucy imagined the soft and deliciously touchable object being pressed between two solid plinths. She saw it being squashed between these two hard surfaces, but once she designed the inflated motion, she decided to go down another direction; to have the squidge resting on top of a plinth as if it were an exhibited goodie surrounded by four white walls. But instead of a solid object being displayed to the masses, the object becomes deformed, exercising plasticity that disobeys the forces we think we know.

Squidge was built using a technique called Dynamic Body or Soft Body tags where, she points out, “you can really explore the physics of a shape.” With this artwork, in particular, she draws out the structure, volume, elasticity and stiffness, resultantly playing with how these elements interact with one another and affect the structure in turn. And as a cherry on top, Lucy additionally applies these ideas to the silky curtains blowing gently in the background. A complimentary movement that spotlights the moving object on the plinth while setting the scene at the same time.