Interview by Daniela Silva
At seven years old, le_Brimet was already moving between two forms of making: programming in BASIC on a ZX Spectrum and filling pages with drawings. That early coexistence of code and handwork has remained central to a practice that now spans art, design, architecture, and computational research. Describing himself as an analogue being with a digital mind, le_Brimet treats sketching, algorithms, materials and machines as parts of the same continuously evolving creative system.
His work begins with curiosity and develops through a non-linear loop of ideation, computation, experimentation and materialisation. Rather than designing isolated forms, le_Brimet constructs generative processes: sets of rules and variables capable of producing multiple possibilities, while leaving space for what he describes as a disciplined form of randomness. The digital is never confined to the screen. Through his guiding commitment to turning pixels into atoms, abstract data becomes cork, ceramic, concrete, recycled polymers, furniture and spatial installations, objects that can be touched, inhabited and experienced.
This translation between code and matter has shaped projects such as GENCORK’s generative acoustic surfaces, the robotically fabricated Path Chair and Resonance, an installation presented at Lisbon’s National Museum of Contemporary Art that explores the physical limits of artificial intelligence. It also informs his evolving ideas around Ma(n)Chine and Re-Generative Design, frameworks through which robots, AI, sustainable materials and human experience enter a relationship of negotiation and co-authorship. For le_Brimet, technology gains relevance when it becomes sensorial, culturally meaningful and capable of expanding human creativity.
The exhibition The Power of IO, and Everything in Between brought ten years of this research together across four interconnected stages: Matter, Material, Materialisation and Materiality. Acting simultaneously as artist and curator, le_Brimet made visible the methodology running beneath a deliberately transdisciplinary body of work. In this interview, he speaks about creative curiosity, conscious madness, machine collaboration, ethically sourced data, and the responsibility of making in a rapidly changing technological landscape, while considering how a more human, sustainable, and materially intelligent digital culture might take form.
Resonance AI. Photo credit: Pedro Machado
For those discovering your work for the first time, in digital fabrication, installations, furniture, and design, how would you describe the thread that links your projects across brands, materials, and scales into a coherent creative identity?
The genesis of my creative identity lies in my fascination with the power of curiosity. I share the idea of Achille Castiglioni, an Italian designer, who said: If you are not curious, forget it. The desire to absorb more knowledge – the sponge effect- and the obsession with exploratory practice – form finding- fuel my holistic and experimental spirit, acting as an ideological guide that leads me to news and different levels of creation.
This is the essence of my theoretical thinking and creative practice, which operate in a phygital universe: a hybrid, fertile territory between the physical and digital worlds. Beyond curiosity, I nurture a great passion for technology. Quoting Nicholas Negroponte, in his book Being Digital (1995): Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living. The digital universe today holds a preponderance that goes far beyond that of a mere technical tool.
There is a digital culture that awakens in me an enormous enthusiasm, and I believe it is this feeling that acts as the binding element of my technology-driven practice, which manifests itself in the fields of art, design and architecture, and has given rise to a new concept I created – ArtCreTechTure.
Do you recall the moment you first fell in love with making, whether through sketching, coding, or crafting? How has that impulse shaped the way you think, create, and problem-solve today?
The will to create has always been intrinsic to my personality; more than a hobby, it has always been a necessity. Today this is very clear to me: my creative act is a vitamin that feeds my mental health. Looking back, I had a fascination with computers from a very early age. At seven years old, I started programming in BASIC on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 128K, which I “inherited” from my father. At the same time I was taking my first steps in programming, I began drawing more regularly, copying Disney drawings from the kids’ supplements of the weekly newspapers.
Like all millennials, I lived through the social and cultural transformation from analogue to digital. I am a mirror of that transition and dichotomy. It was in that hybrid territory that I discovered digital tools could exponentially enhance my creativity. With the same enthusiasm I brought to creating games and programming on the ZX Spectrum, I filled sketchbooks with drawings and diagrams.
Even then, I already had a transdisciplinary creative profile. I often say that I am an analogue being with a digital mind. The analogue component is inseparable from my existence; drawing, sketching and making diagrams come naturally to me. Casey Reas, co-founder of Processing, said in an interview that every algorithm begins on a sheet of paper. I couldn’t agree more.
I have more than 150 sketchbooks in my studio, where I record my ideas from the last 10 years. Only 1% resulted in something tangible, but even so, I particularly enjoy revisiting them, contextualising them in time and space. I have the impression that they are nothing more than quick, schematic materialisations of my thoughts, ones that open a spectrum of possibilities, keeping the mind active in a creative loop.
When I draw, I feel my brain in dialogue with the world. The artistic qualities of my sketches are today secondary: the goal is the record, to represent the idea in its raw state. It is a form of writing, a form of graphic thinking, simple yet very powerful. It is having the brain at the tip of the pen, in a process of learning, constant research and continuous improvement. Learning by doing has always been part of my way of life.
As Samuel Beckett wrote in Worstward Ho (1983): Try again. Fail again. Fail better. This is not merely dramaturgy; it is the natural order of things. I am always “debugging” my own ideas; more than resilience, I would call it resistance, in the search for an identity of my own, exploring the process, focused on making, learning from mistakes and embracing every moment of incessant pursuit of materialisation, savouring the in-between of the initial idea and the final result and its multiple iterations. In short, my goal is to explore the unknown to achieve the unexpected.
Generative design often oscillates between control and unpredictability. Can you share a moment in your process where things went unexpectedly, but led to something meaningful?
Generative design is an extraordinary experience of conception. I divide it into two great moments: the parametric process and the algorithmic system. I often compare it to the process of baking a chocolate cake, where the recipe is a set of finite rules that define the order of the processes, step by step, and the parameters to use, the algorithmic component.
At the same time, the parameters are quantifiable and qualifiable. That is, I can add more sugar, milk or chocolate, and the result will be different; this is the parametric component. The process of algorithmising an idea is similar but has strong roots in deterministic, rational logic, with pillars in geometry, mathematics, and biomimetic principles. However, by introducing variables, the algorithm begins to generate multiple solutions, making it more dynamic and unpredictable. In my creative practice, I do not create forms; I create parametric processes that generate multiple solutions, and from those variations, I choose the one that best translates my idea.
Ultimately, my modus operandi is a blend of Francis Bacon’s scientific method and Jackson Pollock’s action painting. This trial-and-error practice, balanced by rules and parameters, is a precise, rule-based process. The output always obeys a set of pre-established rules. However, there is always space for more unsettling experiments. The concept of “random” is, for me, one of the most fascinating in generative design.
Even within restrictive premises, it introduces a layer of controlled unpredictability that the human system could hardly achieve on its own. It is not about chaos but about a disciplined randomness that operates within defined boundaries and, within those limits, has the power to surprise us. It is precisely in that space of tension between rule and chance that some of the most unexpected and surprisingly powerful forms emerge. I’m not talking about outsourcing creativity or losing control; I’m talking about allowing the system to contribute within a co-creation logic, where the creator defines the territory and the algorithm explores it.
It was this logic of co-creation that gave rise to one of the most paradigmatic examples of my work: the caustic lamp, designed in 2018. The patterns emerged through mathematical functions, and the resulting forms proved far more compelling than my initial sketches, which merely articulated an intention but were insufficient to materialise the concept fully. These mathematical patterns exponentially amplified the caustic effect on surfaces.
I still share this example today in the talks and conferences to which I am invited, as a testimonial to how sometimes, by losing control, we can push the boundaries of our creativity beyond what we imagined possible.
You’ve spoken about turning “pixels into atoms.” Can you recall a project where that translation – from code to material – surprised you, either formally or poetically?
More than a statement, “Turning Pixels into Atoms” is a conceptual commitment. A process of materialising digital protocols into aesthetically appealing spaces and forms, sensorially relevant and with sociocultural meaning. Ten years ago, when I embraced the digital world, I realised how complex it is to transform abstract ideas into tangible objects. Computing operates based on reason, and human beings, beyond reason, need emotion.
If we look at cinema and music, we understand that it is possible to feel emotion even through non-tangible elements. This is only possible because there is an interaction with the senses. However, art, architecture and design need to take shape, to have body and space – they need to exist in the real world and appeal to the emotions. The project that marked the beginning of this journey was also the most revealing.
In 2015, I launched GENCORK, Sofalca’s generative cork panel brand, in Paris. It was extraordinary to witness people’s reactions of genuine astonishment. They instinctively wanted to touch and interact with the surfaces, captivated by their forms, scent, and tactile qualities. Expanded Black Cork, the material used to create these forms, is a sustainable Portuguese supermaterial produced by Sofalca with unique thermal and acoustic properties. It was essential to understand the material’s potential, develop algorithms to fully exploit its properties, and establish a production process using CNC milling machines.
The final result follows an evolutionary process that unfolds in four distinct moments: Matter – the cork granulate (falca) in its most raw and primordial form. Material – the optimisation of its transformation into Expanded Black Cork. Materialisation – the connection between computational algorithms and production through digital fabrication (CNCs). Materiality – the plasticity and sensoriality of the final product.
This experience was so powerful that I realised I had mastered something truly substantial: the transformation of abstract data – rooted in geometry, math and biomimetic – into real experiences capable of capturing the public’s imagination. It was the first “wow factor”. The digital gained a new layer: emotion. From that experience, I learned to connect the dots and created a system that links materialware, software, hardware, and humanware as the identity matrix for future projects.
Digital fabrication is central to your practice, but you treat it as more than a set of tools. How do fabrication technologies shape your design thinking – not just in execution, but in ideation, material behaviour, and even authorship?
Just as I became obsessed with seeking out new ideas and learning to programme to generate forms, I quickly realised the need to transform pixels into atoms. Hardware emerges as a natural evolution of software. I am currently very focused on exploring the man-machine dichotomy – Ma(n)Chine, a concept I adopted to capture the increasingly blurred boundary between the human being and the machine, where the creator and the robot are no longer opposites but become interlocutors. I seek to understand their boundaries and contexts, exploring points of dialogue and complicity.
To this end, I have been developing various G-codes – machine language, a code that gives instructions to numerical control hardware: robotic arms, 3D printers, among others- bridging the gap between form and its materialisation. Ultimately, it is as though I can hold a dialogue with machines and forge a relationship that comes very close to co-authorship.
One of my most recent artistic projects – Resonance, an installation that explores the physical limits of artificial intelligence, exhibited at the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea de Lisboa (MNAC) – gave rise to a form that geometrically embraces visitors, with new materials and new particularities that challenged my skills to generate new technical and aesthetic solutions. Throughout the creation process, multiple solutions were explored, and mistakes were a constant.
That is the enjoyable part: the “Mixtakes” – pieces that fail in the domain of conception but teach us to optimise, and that are, in themselves, unique and extraordinary objects. This synergy with the robot arms demands a deep understanding of material properties, and it is precisely in that tension between error and discovery that much of my creative process resides.
When I create a toolpath for a robotic arm, connecting a series of points according to predefined parameters such as speed, temperature, and extrusion rate, I try to anticipate the behaviour of the material – performative design, balancing the physical and chemical properties of matter with the production process, to maximise the relationship between the material and the form under construction. It is a constant dialogue between what I intend and what the material is capable of, and it is within that space of negotiation that the most compelling solutions emerge.
In the path chair I designed for the Pixom brand, it is immediately apparent how the geometric line, drawn through rigorous geometry composed of tangent curves, is also the generatrix that shapes the legs, the seat, and the backrest, now united in a single, continuous gesture. There is no better translation of the man-machine dichotomy in my portfolio – Design by the human brain, manufactured by a robotic arm.
Over the years, I have experimented with a wide range of digital fabrication processes, including CNC milling, 3D printing, and laser cutting. Yet I feel that robotic arms have become an extension of my creative self—my three-dimensional pencil—and I want to explore this co-creative relationship much further. When I speak of “learning from the machine and machine learning,” I am not referring merely to AI systems. Rather, I am describing a genuine exchange in which I learn from the machine just as much as it learns from me. Together, we materialise ideas through co-creation, guided by the humanisation of technology.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly present in creative practices. In your work, how do you see the pros and cons of using AI in the creative process both as a tool for experimentation and as a possible constraint on authorship?
Artificial intelligence is an unavoidable technology in contemporary society. As a digital creator, I have always been deeply attentive to the evolution of technology and its impact on creative practices. AI entered my creative process very naturally and is already an integral part of my exploratory processes. I use AI agents, LLMs, vibe coding, and image, video, and sound generators daily, and I also attempt to explore their genesis, more specifically, their articulation with personal databases and specific neural systems.
However, I have some reservations about the term “artificial intelligence”. I think it would make more sense to call it computational intelligence. The term “artificial” is often positioned in opposition to the concept of “natural”, and this distinction alone is enough to foster distrust and anti-technology sentiment, reinforced by the natural human aversion to everything new and unknown – Neophobia. I believe that Alan Turing’s insight in his 1950 paper – Computing Machinery and Intelligence, on the concept of thinking machines, machines capable of solving complex problems, would be a designation more in keeping with the reality of the facts.
This concept, which gave rise to AI, is now powered by vast datasets, unprecedented computational capabilities, and increasingly large context windows, enabling a level of contextual understanding never before possible. Artificial intelligence has both positive and negative aspects. But the users of generative AI also play a key role. If we remain ethically responsible and intellectually curious users, our cognitive capacity will grow exponentially; if we are lazy users, we will lose cognitive abilities. It is this distinction between the curious user and the lazy user that places responsibility where it truly belongs: with the human being.
Thus, curiosity will be the key to change. It is essential not to outsource ideas, to be the architect of our own creativity and to delegate only the most technical and repetitive functions, so that the creation does not become more inventive than the creator. Generative AI can quickly provide graphical and textual responses; however, its actions are grounded in a global database. Creation has its genesis in pre-existence and results from multiple associations triggered by the user’s prompt. It is very difficult for generative AI to create something from scratch that is 100% new.
In the future, it may evolve into an AGI – Artificial General Intelligence. The concept already exists theoretically, but its practical realisation is still a distant ambition, I think. Another point that leaves me sceptical is the AI hype. We live in a moment when the media and large technology companies promote AI in an almost messianic way, creating a narrative of omnipotence that, above all, serves their commercial interests.
They encourage mass use, create dependency, but rarely explain the real reach – and the real limits – of the technology. What they show us is only the tip of the iceberg: the user-friendly interfaces, the impressive results, the promise of an easier life. What they conceal is the scale of the data they consume, the business models they feed and the increasingly passive role they reserve for human beings. In the eyes of big tech, the user has become a commodity – a source of data and revenue. It is precisely for this reason that technological literacy and a critical stance are today just as important as the technology itself.
The power of AI lies in the possibility of creating our own database with our own elements and generating variations of our creative self- that is something that truly excites me: creating a digital version, feeding my “cyborg”. I believe using my own database will help me reach new levels of creative depth. I am reminded of a phrase by Rembrandt: “I need one more lifetime to paint all my ideas.” I too feel that urgency to try to materialise all my ideas. It may seem a little sci-fi, but with AI tools we can truly accelerate the processes of conception. The mind works by association – if we manage to create new connections, we can accelerate our creative processes and have more time to reach another level of complexity.
I am an advocate of vibe coding, an approach to programming in which the user describes in natural language what they want to build, and an AI agent generates the corresponding code. Instead of writing line by line, the creative defines the intention, architecture, and logic, and delegates the technical execution to the system. It is a profound paradigm shift: code ceases to be a barrier and becomes a language accessible to anyone with a clear idea and a critical mindset. For me, vibe coding has enormously accelerated my ability to create new conception tools – today I am a curator of my own creativity, reading, analysing and evaluating the generated code, assessing whether it is in line with my architecture of thought and my creative goals.
I am genuinely excited by the ways AI systems can enhance my creative practice, rather than by the prospect of creating art or design derived from other artists’ work. To me, that is profoundly reductive. It is very important to keep the data source within an ethical domain. Refik Anadol, in an interview on the CBS programme 60 Minutes, called it “ethically sourced data sets”. For example, in the site-specific project – Data Tree Metamorphosis, an AI-driven data installation developed at the Estufa Fria, with soundscape engineering by Marcus Amadeus, explored the power of artificial intelligence to generate digital video animations, physical surfaces, and soundscapes. It is based on an AI model trained on photographs of different plant species from Estufa Fria.
The project uses local inputs to create new visual and sound outputs that question the potential evolution of plant species, shaped by prompts addressing climate change and human-driven destruction of biological ecosystems. Structured like a growing data tree, the installation navigates two metaphysical portals: the digital (through video animation ) and the physical (through a regenerative cork pattern developed in partnership with Gencork).
Another compelling example of AI use is the c(AI)rcles project. Created to promote innovation, creativity, and sustainability at some of the world’s most renowned design events—including Paris, Milan, London, Helsinki, and Dubai- it is a circular art and design installation made from Sofalca’s expanded black cork. The installation materialises the concept of Naturology (Nature + Technology), exploring the convergence of artificial intelligence, (re)generative design, and sustainability. Based on biomimetic principles, its circular structure reproduces the organic rules and evolutionary processes found in nature, which humans interpret through co-creation with algorithmic computation. The result is a new creative framework that reveals innovative pathways for contemporary art and design.
In your projects, where does the making process begin? Do you start with material intuition, algorithmic logic, or spatial ambition, and how do those elements interact as the work takes shape?
My creative process follows the concepts of ideation, computation, experimentation, and materialisation, which blend into a non-sequential creative loop. All my projects begin with drawings, diagrams and texts. The first phase is that of ideation, deep thinking, graphic reflection and the search for solutions towards the materialisation of an idea. My moodboards are mental and diagrammatic. In this embryonic phase, I avoid letting other artists’ work contaminate my initial ideas. It is a personal, complex and time-consuming process.
Creative solitude demands a great deal of concentration to reach hyperfocus, and quality will only emerge after multiple layers of depth and abstraction. After this more visceral phase, I try to understand how the digital process can enhance the idea by encoding the concept to decode formal variations. It is crucial to keep the spectrum of possibilities and variations as wide as possible. It is at this stage that software, computation, and AI systems play an essential role, exploring the logic of trial and error and form-finding.
Sometimes the solution lies in biomimetic, mathematical and geometric algorithms; other times I create directly from my sketches or using my own AI tools. It depends on the idea; it is not linear, there are multiple factors in constant mutation and adaptation. Materials often emerge as the element that forces me to accelerate decisions and be more pragmatic in my choices.
A particularly revealing example is the cork lamp I developed for the Lexus Design Award. The starting point was an Enneper surface, a mathematical surface of minimal curvature, elegant and rigorous. The first sketches showed only a generic loop line, an intention without shape. It was geometry and mathematics that resolved and refined the final form. The material, cork thread developed by designer Mónica Gonçalves, conditioned the choice of production process and the entire management of the project, connecting software and hardware in a precise chain and exploring the world of digital craft.
Software can be used to create form, generative design. But also to optimise – performative design. After developing the prototypes, I try to digitally simulate whether the form fits the function or the space; I produce mockups and validate everything before moving forward to final realisation. In some more site-specific projects, I emphasise context and draw on the place’s singularities. Whether creating forms or designing spaces, these processes are never straightforward, and their dynamics are easily reversible depending on the inputs dictated by the methodology along the way.
I am very methodical in this process; I am almost a creative scientist. But there is a tension that inhabits me and that I want to explore more and more: that of conscious madness. When we deeply master technique, we run the risk of becoming too efficient, of producing correct but predictable solutions, where rigour suffocates surprise. Conscious madness is precisely the opposite: It is the ability to make seemingly irrational decisions within a technically controlled framework, to introduce the unexpected, and to encourage the system to generate what could not have been foreseen.
It is not chaos; it is an informed rebellion, a deliberate transgression of the rules that the creators themselves define. It is the moment when the scientist gives way to the artist, and in those moments the most surprising and genuinely original works emerge. In the years ahead, I want to inhabit that territory more, not to abandon the method, but to learn to subvert it more often and with greater courage. Because it is on the boundary between rigour and madness that creativity reaches its true potential.
You’ve mentioned ideas around Re-Generative Design as an evolution of Generative Design. Can you expand on how robotics and AI integrate into this vision, and how the intersection of materialware, software, hardware, and humanware reshapes your design methodology?
The creation of a Computational Regenerative Process, conceived as an evolution of generative systems, emerged from the need to update and redefine the concepts of Materialware, Software, Hardware, and Humanware in light of recent developments in sustainable materials, computation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and human needs.
More specifically, Materialware refers to the research, analysis, and implementation of emerging materials – sustainable, recycled, or recyclable – whose tactile, structural, and aesthetic properties enable the development of new forms, textures, and interactions. Software constitutes the foundation of the computational process, enabling the generation of tangible forms through abstract computational procedures based on algorithmic and parametric systems. Hardware represents the materialisation of these forms through digital fabrication technologies that bridge the gap between concept and construction.
Finally, Humanware integrates these three dimensions into a meaningful human experience, placing people and their lived experiences at the centre of the creative process. To understand this evolution, it is important to revisit the origins of generative design. During the late 1960s, two fundamental approaches to computational design began to emerge: algorithmic systems, based on finite sets of rules organised into sequences of instructions, and parametric processes, which introduced qualitative and quantitative variables into form generation.
These approaches were closely linked to mathematics, geometry, and biomimetics, playing a decisive role in the development of computer graphics, initially applied to the video game and film industries and later to architecture and design. Following the enthusiasm of the early twenty-first century, symbolised by Patrik Schumacher’s Parametricism as Style – Parametricist Manifesto (2008), architects such as Zaha Hadid, designers such as Ross Lovegrove, and artists such as Marc Fornes, founder of TheVeryMany, helped establish these methodologies within professional practice.
Despite their significance, generative design gradually lost prominence in many areas of architecture and design, often being reduced to a predominantly technical methodology. However, what seemed destined to remain a niche discipline gained renewed relevance through the democratisation of artificial intelligence, which opened unprecedented opportunities for new creative processes.
The emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence, not only through Large Language Models (LLMs), but also through AI agents capable of enabling vibe coding, introduced a fundamentally new way of thinking about and developing computational applications. The ability to create increasingly complex systems with greater speed, flexibility, and autonomy has grown significantly, transforming the way we conceive and produce projects.
Faced with this new landscape, I felt the need to rethink and update my own creative process by integrating these emerging technologies and investigating how they interact and reinforce one another. In many ways, generative design now appears as only the first stage of a much broader computational paradigm. Alongside the evolution of artificial intelligence, we are also witnessing a profound transformation in the relationship between humans and machines.
The rapid development of robotics, combined with increasingly democratic access to technological knowledge, enables us to view robotic arms not simply as manufacturing tools, but as design partners capable of executing processes with remarkable precision, speed, and adaptability. Within my own artistic and research practice, I have developed protocols capable of generating fabrication systems and printing codes (G-code) for different materials, including concrete, ceramics, and polymers, exploring new possibilities in digital fabrication.
The field of materials is undergoing an equally significant transformation. The emergence of biomaterials, recycled materials, and recyclable materials has become increasingly common, generating more sustainable and environmentally responsible design practices. As technological progress cannot be halted, I believe it is essential to understand these transformations critically and evaluate how they can be integrated into our modus operandi. Within this context, Regenerative Design does not represent a rupture with Generative Design, but rather its technical, aesthetic, and ethical evolution. It is not about abandoning previous principles, but about expanding them within a substantially different technological and cultural context.
In 2024, I established the principles of Regenerative Design, seeking to define the guiding framework of this new approach and to explore how it could lead to a new level of creativity, with the primary objective of humanising technology. Ultimately, Regenerative Design constitutes my conceptual framework for a more conscious, sustainable, and human-centred technological practice. Rather than simply updating Generative Design, it proposes a new way of understanding the relationship between creativity, technology, materiality, and human experience.
Your exhibition, The Power of IO and Everything in Between, marks a decade of creative exploration. If your practice were a generative system, how would you describe the variables that have evolved most over time?
It is a very interesting analogy. I like to think that both creative practice and life itself function as generative systems in constant transformation, in which new variables are continuously introduced, adjusted, or removed. As in a parametric process, each new experience shifts the system’s balance and influences all subsequent decisions.
Creating is therefore a continuous exercise in adaptation, in which evolution emerges from the dynamic interplay among multiple factors rather than from a linear or predetermined path. From this perspective, I believe that my creative practice has grown not only in complexity but also in scale. Today, it spans a wide range of disciplines, from architecture and design to art, becoming increasingly diverse. It has also gained a broader geographical reach, enabling collaboration across countries worldwide.
However, as project scale increases, the time available inevitably decreases, creating an inverse relationship that makes it increasingly challenging to maintain balance between the two. Finally, perhaps the most important variable is responsibility. It is the variable that guides all the others, transforming creativity into an ethical commitment. Creating is no longer simply about producing new forms; it has become an act of creating value for people, culture, and the ecosystems in which each project exists.
As both the artist and curator of the exhibition, how did arranging the works spatially shape the way you understood their connections, especially across your multiple creative identities?
The exhibition was a truly enriching experience, not only because of the challenge itself but also because of the opportunity to work with the artist and my partner, Susana Chasse. She not only collaborated on the exhibition’s art direction but has also been an essential source of support in my convergence of design and art. She is undoubtedly a great inspiration to me, and it is a genuine privilege to share ideas, experiences, and this creative journey with her.
During the exhibition’s conception, one of the greatest challenges was organising each floor around a specific theme. Interestingly, the exhibition venue, an old flour mill, was distributed across four levels, naturally suggesting a narrative structure for the exhibition. I therefore assigned a concept to each floor: -1-Matter, 0-Material, 1-Materialization, and 2-Materiality. This framework reflected the different stages of my creative practice and research process, giving coherence to the exhibition as a whole.
The Matter floor was dedicated to raw material and material experimentation, with a particular focus on ceramics through unique 3D-printed pieces developed using generative design and artificial intelligence, as well as large-scale 3D-printed concrete furniture. The Material floor focused on material research, presenting a material library alongside generative acoustic panels and objects developed in Cork in collaboration with GENCORK/SOFALCA.
The Materialisation floor explored the processes of digital fabrication, highlighting large-scale 3D printing, projects developed for Pixom, and the use of biopolymers and recycled polymers.
Finally, the Materiality floor—the most heterogeneous of the four—presented the tangible outcomes of these investigations through products developed in wood, stone, glass, iron, and other materials that were subsequently manufactured and introduced to the market.
As both the artist and curator of the exhibition, I realised through this spatial organisation that, although my practice spans different disciplines, including architecture, design, art, and computational research, it is driven by a common underlying methodology. The exhibition made visible a way of working that had always existed but had never before been presented so clearly or so comprehensively.
Rather than simply separating projects into thematic groups, the organisation of the four floors revealed the relationships between matter, technology, fabrication, and human experience, reinforcing the idea that all these fields belong to the same creative ecosystem.
Now that this exhibition marks ten years of exploration, what’s next? Are there new materials, narratives, or typologies you’re eager to explore?
After more than a decade of developing my practice primarily within a European context, I feel that the future lies in reconnecting with my African roots and bringing this cultural heritage into dialogue with contemporary digital culture. I believe that this encounter between tradition and innovation can open new paths for research and creative practice, giving rise to genuinely original languages and narratives.
I intend to continue expanding my knowledge while cultivating the holistic vision that has shaped my journey. Being ArtCreTech means embracing a mindset of continuous experimentation and building bridges among art, technology, design, architecture, science, and creativity. In the years ahead, I will continue to explore new materials and deepen the relationship between humans and machines by investigating the potential of 3D printing, robotics, and computational systems as tools for design and fabrication.
At the same time, I am deeply committed to integrating artificial intelligence in a critical, conscious, and responsible way, using it not as an end in itself but as a means to expand human creativity and foster more inclusive, democratic, and sustainable creative processes.
Rather than simply keeping pace with technological progress, I aspire to contribute to its humanisation by developing projects in which innovation is always placed at the service of people, culture, and the environment. It is at this convergence of critical thinking, material experimentation, and computational creativity that I envision the future of my practice.
What’s your chief enemy of creativity?
Time.
You couldn’t live without…
Freedom of Creation.
