Hot Mesh
This is Hot Mesh, a modular system for space-making and shade-casting, made of finely woven wire joined by clips 3D-printed in recycled plastic. Its first iteration is MAYA (named for the artist Maya Deren and her surrealist film Meshes of the Afternoon).
Hot Mesh exemplifies the application of skilled handcraft to humble materials to create valuable objects, typical of a vernacular street craft such as Southern African wire art – where time may be available but not much money for materials.
There are many weeks of work, performed by 9 wire artists plus lead artist Ralph Borland, condensed into this high-value waist-high object made of hardware-store steel fencing wire and finished with industrial zinc electroplating in yellow and clear.
X-Module
Hot Mesh’s building block is the sensuously curved and semi-transparent X-module, made by hand in galvanised steel wire by highly skilled artisans in Southern Africa. Each module starts as a meticulous wireframe, over which finer gauges of wire are woven in a contemporary form of basketry. It takes days to make one module, with painstaking attention to detail in the even spacing of wire as it negotiates complex three-dimensional curves.
18 modules make up MAYA: a square-metre wall, the width of an LP record cover (12 inches or 30-odd centimetres). It is an object at once meditative and alive with energy, with its complex shadows and layered moiré patterns in fine mesh-work.
Influences
The influences on the project include the intricate stonework of Great Zimbabwe, Mozambiquan burglar-bars, breeze-blocks, cloth prints and tiling patterns. The sculpture draws from the contemporary urban fabric of Africa, as well as echoing older forms: metal ingots, head-rests and stools.
The exacting wireframe skeleton to the X-module builds on our work in making wireframe spaceship sculptures for SPACECRAFT that resemble digital models, and its woven skin extends the intertwined vegetal forms in galvanised silver and gold that we made for Shapeshifting Chandelier, and the surface of Dubship I – Black Starliner.
Both approaches derive from existing street wire art practices, in wire cars and sharks, vases and baskets. Hot Mesh is our first foray into entirely abstract patternation, that lends itself to applications in design and architecture, and art.
Making
MAYA was made with a combination of hand and machine processes. First was a dream, recorded on waking as a paper sketch, followed by a clay model in studio. Technical drawings came next, and wooden laser-cut jigs to guide a full-size wire sample. Small-scale 3D-prints supported the wire artist’s work, with the machine’s layering of plastic filament informing their negotiation of the module’s form.
More tools were developed iteratively as 9 wire artists worked with lead artist Ralph Borland, using laser-cut wood along with hand-made wire jigs. 3D-printed clips in skeuomorphic imitation of wire binding (and in reference to ubiquitous moulded plastic goods, such as knock-off Monobloc chairs) connected the modules together. 3D-models helped to visualise the final form – and larger realisations.
Thanks
Thanks to Spier Arts Trust for supporting the development of MAYA, and to our past funders the National Arts Council of South Africa, British Council, Pro Helvetia, Africa Culture Fund, African Artists Foundation and Business Arts South Africa.
And more…
Hot Mesh’s work with 3D-printing led to the generation of a new piece, as the maquette to rehearse new structures took on a life of its own, becoming its own artwork: XOX Toy © with the tagline: ‘Build Your Own Sculpture’. Check it out and buy a limited edition at xox-toy.com
