Yesterday I went on a field trip together with the students of the jewelry department of the academy in Antwerp. There were some extra seats available on the bus and I was very pleased that I was welcome to join them. Sadly I forgot to take my camera with me, I found all the pictures that you see here on the internet.

In the morning we visited the company Layerwise in Louvain. This company developed an amazing technology in collaboration with the university of Louvain. You deliver them a three dimensional computer design and they print it out for you in metal! This is done with a laser that heats layer by layer of the object in a recipient with very fine metal powder. With this technique they can create objects that were impossible to make out of one piece up untill today. This technology is mostly used for technical and medical employment, but there are some artists that are already using this technique aswell. Bathsheba Grosmann is one of them. The company Mgx Materialise specializes in design objects made with this technique. They mostly print their objects in nylon and polyester. They showed us the machines to do this, but unfortunately they were not printing. I never liked working on the computer. But the possibilities of this technique encouraged me to go and study 3D design on the computer.

In the afternoon we visited the tinfactory Riskin in Tongeren. This was located in a very beautiful old chocolate factury. They showed us how the pewter objects are manufactured under high pressure. I really liked the colour of the pewter. The production price of a series of objects is quite low, so I will be trying this technique within a few months!