episode 8 – 3D printing Art, Design, and Fashion | Naomi Kaempfer

Resources and links

• Stratasys main website
• 3D Printed Art and Design World – a dedicated website to the creative collaborations at Stratasys
• Mushtari – Neri Oxman project 
• Naomi Kaempfer personal website
• The Sixth Sense collection

Transcripts

Nir Hindi: [00:00:00] Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for coming back for another episode of the Artian. Today, we are going to talk about an exciting topic – 3D and Art. Speaking to us from Belgium is Naomi  Kaempfer. Hey Noami. Thanks for joining us.

[00:00:14] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:00:14] Hi, how are you?

[00:00:16] Nir Hindi: [00:00:16] I’m great. I’m great.

[00:00:18] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:00:18] It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:00:20] Nir Hindi: [00:00:20] First of all, thank you for taking the time to speak with us and our listeners today about the exciting topic that you are dealing with on your day to day, which I’m positive many people will envy you. Naomi can you take a moment to introduce yourself?

[00:00:34] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:00:34] Okay. Sure. So first of all, my name is Naomi Kaempfer. I am an Israeli American and German living in Belgium. I studied the law philosophy, product engineering with a masters in industrial design.  I specialize in 3D printing  over 20 years and work as a creative director.

[00:00:56] Nir Hindi: [00:00:56] We we’ll get to some of your hidden sides later on in the conversation. So you’re actually the creative director of a company called Stratasys. What is exactly Stratasys or what they are doing on the day to day?

[00:01:09] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:01:09] Sure. Stratasys is a very interesting company, a leading in the field of 3D printing Stratasys manufacturers.

[00:01:19] 3D printers all around the world. It’s headquarters are located in Israel and in the United States with obviously offices globally and we specialize in leading technologies in the additive manufacturing field.

[00:01:34] Nir Hindi: [00:01:34] Great. And your role over there is the creative director for Art, Design and Fashion.

[00:01:39] What does it mean?

[00:01:40] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:01:40] Eh, I’m responsible for all the creative collaborations. Bring in designers, fashion designers, artists, architects, to explore together with me the novelties in our technology, we work very, very close with our research and development team to discover new initiatives, new applications, and new opportunities within this technology and within  new ideas in the design and culture market.

[00:02:12]Nir Hindi: [00:02:12] I often speak about how companies can work with artists and there are different models from hiring an artist. They creating artist in residence programs some of them, we will speak with future speakers later in this podcast, and obviously collaborating without this.

[00:02:27] And you chose to collaborate without artists.  And that leads me to kind of my next question. Why a 3D company needs a creative director that build collaborations with artists.

[00:02:40] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:02:40] I think it’s a wonderful question. Of course. The question is also from which perspective we want to look it. I worked earlier in my career for a Belgium company called materialize and constructed for materialize, a division that was focusing the creation of art and design a product through a 3D printing.

[00:03:00] we noticed that this creates an enormous pool and enormous attention and emotional attention of the all knowing audience and what I mean by all knowing audience. The, I mean, not the people who are specialized, not the people who are focused in industry, uh, but really every day, everybody who has, has some kind of interest in fashion or art or design, it creates an enormous pool towards the  applications of 3D printing. Stratasys whom I work for today was one of my collaborators in that period time. And it was only natural for me once I concluded my previous position to continue and collaborate with the Stratasys. Yeah. With intention to dig in a deeper level into the technology at the birth of the printer, as opposed to our work together with a service Bureau that has the printer ready at hand, and we’re utilizing the technology.

[00:04:03] So that’s a little bit what we’re doing today. together with the creative people, artists, designers. I like to build up different things, which challenge that technology on its innovations while at the same time, we try to consider novel possibilities. What we can create, what we can achieve, what will be the question tomorrow?

[00:04:26] That could be answered with 3D printing technologies. And this is  an imaginary trajectory that we are building for ourselves in this collaboration.

[00:04:36]And you are doing it

[00:04:37] Nir Hindi: [00:04:37] for how long already? This collaboration without artists and designers,

[00:04:42] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:04:42] I’d say altogether since 2002.

[00:04:45] Nir Hindi: [00:04:45] So that’s quite a long time.  The image of an artist is actually the painter. Sitting in the studio and using acrylic or oil painting   in order to paint in the day to day. But actually artists, I always say are humans that live in the same era as we do. And they are always interested in exploring new technologies and you work actually at the intersection of creativity and art with cutting edge technology. Being in the 3D field for more than 20 years, meaning that you saw that technology and the industry developing very quickly and in depth. And I’m interested to know where art in technology actually converge or similar or where they are different?

[00:05:30] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:05:30] So you’re asking a lot of things they together, we’ll try to go along with this thought thread or thought. First of all, when we speak about creativity, I think this is a huge question. What is creativity? What is being an artist? Is being an artist, pulling your brush through oil paint and a little bit of medium and applying it on canvas?

[00:05:54] And this is something that is very manual. This is a craft almost, this is a manipulation and the word manipulation uses contains the word, man, which has hand Latin. Also the word manufacturing contains the word, man, the Latin for hand. So very, very closely when we think about creativity, we often, uh, unintentionally associate creativity with an act that we do with our, and this is a questionable thought because when we deal with digital creativity, we deal with something that is almost it touched from the hand.

[00:06:30] So it’s true that we moved the mouse. Of the computer with a hand or that we move the pen on the writing boards on the digital writing board with our hand. But for me, creativity is I think that it’s happens in our mind.  The ability to see our mind to vision in our mind and expression which does not necessarily have to be physical.

[00:06:54] It could also be a creative way of connecting ideas that in the past did not necessarily come together. Associating two different entities from different disciplines and recognizing that intelligence from one discipline can encourage the intelligence of a second discipline. This is for me, creativity.

[00:07:17] When we pull a brush to the canvas, it is a motoric expression. It is a skill. we want to see the image that I have in the movie playing in my mind can be translated through my arm and my motoric skills to the canvas. This is fascinating because definitely we have to involve our creative brain in the generating this translation and it is a very liberating activity, but this is only a very specific quality of artistic history or creativity. Creativity is really, it could be a lawyer can be very creative if he gets an idea from a one, a concept and can bring it into a business structure or into a collaboration project on legal terms this is as good as being a painter sometimes.

[00:08:13] So creativity in my mind is a very broad notion and I think it is very, very important when we want to work with artists that we understand that creativity is something to appreciate in a thinking process, we can find somebody who is really very good in a drawing on the computer but we will not be able to make innovations. It’s really, yeah. About the capacity of understanding where we are as humans at this period of time. For example, what are the pains? What are the happiness? What are the curiosities? What is our hungry driven towards? And can we answer this with the main stuff, physical tools or cultural tools?

[00:08:57] This is the first question that we are most interested to answer through a design or through a fashion or through art when we come together. And then of course, how do we express this? How do we translate this? We talk about composition. We talk about visual aesthetics. We talk about rhythm. We talk about pattern.

[00:09:19] We talk about the algorithmic understanding. We talk about heritage. We talk about cultural references. We talk about different proportions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But. At the end of the day, creativity is in the eyes of the viewer. We want to satisfy a lust. We want to satisfy a question that we, as people I simply have in the time in which we live and that we are seeking to receive some kind of reinforcement to the meaning of our lives through this cultural outputs. And I think this is the quality that goes beyond, beyond technology that goes beyond civilization that goes beyond laws, beyond the social constructs. This is a quality that goes directly to our hearts as people. I think this is why artists are important for us above so many other qualities, because it’s a dialogues with a human entity and us and dialogues with our deepest quest in our lives. Perhaps the search for connection and for meaning and for, and beauty as well.

[00:10:37]Nir Hindi: [00:10:37] I think that listeners cannot see that I’m smiling, but I smile from one side to one side because I, for the one that already familiar with the podcast and what I do, I always say that for me, art is not an object.

[00:10:49] It’s a mentality, the painting or the book or the song are just the expression of a thinking process. that’s why one of the things that I encourage companies to work with artists because art is not about putting the paint on the brush and put it on a canvas but what is behind the act that actually they are taking. A, so I’m very happy that you just say enforce it and we didn’t even discuss it before.

[00:11:13] So I want to go back to my first question because you also referred to it at some point. What is the difference and the similarities between the technology and art?

[00:11:23] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:11:23] Okay, Nir, maybe will take back to the previous question that you asked, because we didn’t answer it yet, actually. So the magic of collaborating with artists and designers and fashion designers, it is an endless added value.

[00:11:38] We’re touching the spirits of the people, not just the employees, not just the bookkeeping, not just the lawyers, not just the engineers, not just the corrier or the production or the whatever, a function we can find within the people of the company. Through the arts. We really engage with the spirits.

[00:12:00] Oh, the people in the company and with the spirit of the people in the market. Okay. This goes beyond consumerism. This goes on a much deeper level. And in that sense, art can connect and bridge much faster and much deeper between people revolve in a certain topic. And I think this is very, very critical quality. for, which art and design can be so important for every company.

[00:12:27] Nir Hindi: [00:12:27] I have a question over here. I mean,  for you, it’s much more natural, I think, to work with artists and designers through your background. But you mentioned that you work with the R&D team and I wonder how they respond when you brought them those artists is that often we tend to think, Oh, this crazy creatives, et cetera, how the dynamics work there.

[00:12:46] I mean, what was the surprises maybe for the R&D team, how they responded for your ideas and your suggestions to bring those artists.

[00:12:55] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:12:55] This is  a very good question. I think as engineer, you will often be focusing on the practicality of actualizing a certain application. For example, I can glue this particle to that particle and perhaps enable a certain material to be applied as a creative person.

[00:13:16] When you are enabling the connection of these two particles worlds, open up as a creative person. We see possibilities. That are enabling us to realize certain depictions, ideas, visions, dreams. You name it. now it’s also not always that’s  obvious connection. So my job is to mitigate. To take the engineering resolution to see the application idea and to say, okay, well, how can I translate this towards the artists, towards the designers so that they can continue to dream onwards on different possibilities. So the translation begins with me. Eh, by understanding the capacity of the technology, understanding what this could mean in translation to an art form or design form or fashion form, and bring in these raw ideas and concepts and stories to the artistic side, to the artists and designers.

[00:14:20] It could also happen differently that together with the R&D team, we’ll see a potential idea and I will challenge directly and say, okay, Can we do this? Can we do that? Because of course I am a putting myself in the thinking eye of the creative there of the creative director, the artist, or the design, or, and already know in advance, it would be the curiosities or what could be the dreams that we wish to realize with the technology.

[00:14:47] So this is just one side of the spectrum. Then once we get started, once we get rolling new questions pop up. So we will be busy with a certain design. Suddenly we have certain technical limitations, and then we’re going to challenge the technical team. Can you come up with a material that flows in a certain tangency?

[00:15:05] Can you come up with a material that will be dissolved in certain conditions? Can you come up with an idea that would fit in a certain corner against a certain friction against a certain temperatures. So through this fantastic experience on one hand, we’re dreaming forward in a world that is undecided or unpredicted.

[00:15:28] And bringing it back towards the engineering team to support a predictability, to support a repeatability, to support production possibility somehow like a, you wake up from a dream and you have a day in reality, you go back to dreaming. So you constantly enrich both worlds,

[00:15:47] Nir Hindi: [00:15:47] I think is a very important point that I will ask you later if a company wants to have a successful collaboration with artists what they should do.   And I think you’re already spotted the first thing. You need a good translator. Someone that can understand the engineering and the business, and someone can understand the art and creativity and those R&D engineers they excited about those collaborations? Are they happy to do it? Or they’re so busy to develop the next printer that they sometimes tell you, we have a deadline to develop. What should we do?

[00:16:16] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:16:16] As you know, art and design, eh, immediately touches everybody’s heart. So it’s very, very difficult to be busier, to touch arts in design without having your hearts involved very deeply in it.

[00:16:29]so definitely we work with a very enthusiastic team and we love it. It’s impossible not to work around these topics and to be emotionally excited and fully engaged.  the community occasion of course, is very different. And I think that it’s, you’re right. It’s very critical to understand both parties.

[00:16:49]each party has different perspective on how things are being done. On methods of working on structures and to be the ambassador between it’s almost like being the ambassador between the left brain and the right brain. You need to be aware of the qualities of the left. The left brain, the engineering and the business necessities.

[00:17:10] And at the same time also appreciate the wildness, the unpredictability. The lack of control that sometimes is represented by the right brain. And neither of the two sides of the brain can work independently from each other. We will be stuck if we don’t have creativity in business and we will be stuck if we don’t have business and creativity.

[00:17:33] So they can’t live one day without the other. And we constantly need to have a dialogue. Between these two parties. And I would say this is really important. Not necessarily only when we talk about, you know, the hard definition of, okay, these are artists and this is business. I think in all creative or innovation processes within a company it’s really critical to be able to engage between the rational mind and the human hearts. This is for me, the place where businesses really win. And if you go back to all businesses that have a success in the market, you will always find that this is the winning card. It’s a marriage between the heart and the brain. So when these two are in coherence, You will get the best collaboration, the best product, the best consumer connection and the best place in the market.

[00:18:27] The intelligence also of our hearts is 10 folds faster than the intelligence of our brain. We sense things in advance. We feel innovation coming. It’s a different method of thinking. When we say I have, I have an intuition. In fact, what we’re saying is my brain is so fast to give me the answer that I don’t know what was the process that leads me to the end of the calculation.

[00:18:56] I don’t see all of them parameters that were brought together in my brain for the calculation, but intuition is in fact like a final result of knowledge that is a lifelong, that is deep. That is experience a rich and that your body, heart and soul tells you do this. This is the right thing to go. Yeah.

[00:19:20] Nir Hindi: [00:19:20] You are speaking about so many things and you’ll get me excited over here. It’s like, it’s like, you know, I always say we need the imagination and we need the execution. You cannot have only one of them. It’s like management and leadership. There are not the same. You need to have management that know how to do the routines and the methods.

[00:19:37] And you need leadership that speaks to our values and our emotions and our heart. It’s like super exciting before we will go to some of them examples, because you worked with some of the leading artist and designer of the world and some of the leading museums of the world. Let’s take a short break and we’ll come back in a second.

[00:20:00] Hey listeners. Thank you for coming back. I’m speaking here with Naomi, the creative director for art, design and fashion at Stratasys, the leading 3D manufacture company. And we are talking about exciting topic, the intersection of art and technology. Art and 3D. And just before the break, we started to speak about the importance of having the, I would say the balance between the right and left between the hearts and the logic between the managers and the leaders.

[00:20:28] And I want to kind of go now into more specific examples and Naomi when I ask you about your role one of the things that you mentioned is that you want to challenge the technology and challenge the creativity. When you say, I want to challenge the technology, what do you mean? And can you give us a concrete example?

[00:20:48] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:20:48] One of the beautiful examples of challenging the technology, and this is an example I love very much. It was when we were working together with Nerri Oxman on a project that is called “Mushtaroi”. We did this for first day collection together with Neri. Our interest was. To focus on the different elements that it was a collection about title, the Sixth Element.

[00:21:13] And we wanted to understand how these elements work with our arts or with our vision of the future. And now he’s answer was thinking about how can we cope in different atmospheres. How would we, as humans cope where the elements that we already know would be changed and that say we would go into different atmospheres and have to survive in under conditions.

[00:21:39] And in this project, her Wanderers are actually carrying new organic organs. And the exterior of the body and able to use different atmospheric gases and properties in order to survive. And one of these models Neri thought about generating almost a similar, like a external digestive system that is composed of a channel that is as long as our digestive system, but it is external to the body.

[00:22:14] And it’s will together with, Symbiosis between eco and Siano bacteria in theory, generated photosynthesis and utilize lights to sugar for the human in another atmosphere. So this is an imaginary story, of course, or a futuristic concept. And in practice, the question was, how can we print a channel that is as thin as one millimeter or two millimeter thin it to contain a liquid and to transition a liquid during a, a little channel or eight or ten meters.

[00:22:52] So in the time we got our engineering team together and we had to solve it using the current support materials that we had at the time it was not a, a possibility because you are unable to release. A support material form a channel that is 10 meter long say the understanding of vessels. Yeah. The understanding of surface tension is such that you cannot release a material that has another consistency from within such a long channel.

[00:23:23] So finally, our wonderful engineers, it was at the time it Daniel Dukowski and Boris Belocon set on the printer a full night and just, they dropped a liquid solution. That’s remained liquid during the fall printing process instead of the gelatin like solution that we had at the time  and by the next morning, a lo and behold, a new invention was created, amazing completely liquid supports material that a can be drained at the end of the printing process.

[00:23:56] And that’s enabled us to create these channels. So you would say, okay, so who cares? It’s just the fantasy story. You need this external organ that contains a channel of 10 meters long to carry it to the MoMA museum or the Cooper Hewitt you are for an exhibition, but why all this why to go through all this trouble?

[00:24:16] Right. So the interesting thing is that by going through all this fantastical trouble, we found out a solution that allows to print that Stratasys hearts and volves and blood vessels and to reprint organs. And that was only thanks to the liquid, the. Support material that suddenly a lot of other opportunities that are very critical for todays, a medical business, it became possible.

[00:24:48] So through a totally crazy arts idea  we come to a fantastic and wonderful and very, very practical solution that can help surgeons and save people’s lives. So sometimes we really need to think out of the box. Not be aware that we need something, go on a journey. Create with all our hearts, the solution to that, a crazy thought, and to come back to do something very practical that helps us to save people’s lives.

[00:25:20] Nir Hindi: [00:25:20] Amazing. I think that the fantasy of today’s the innovation of tomorrow, we just need to be able to unlock our imagination. That’s a great moment to remind all our listeners, by the way, I don’t know about you, but I’m super excited and I’m positive that Naomi has many more stories. Obviously we can not pull everything into one hour.

[00:25:39] But that’s a great moment to remind you that all the show notes and example Naomi mentioned, we will put links on our website. So go and check it after this show. so the first thing was challenging the technology, and then you said, I want to challenge the creativity and you spoke about how sometimes you push artists to think beyond what they’re used to.

[00:25:58] Can you tell me what does it mean? Challenge the creativity and maybe an example?

[00:26:03] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:26:03] Of course, whatever put together , a collection. First of all, I am concerned and AE, opening up a new chapter, eh, depending on the moment that that collection is composed. We have different topics that we want to answer on a social level, as well as questions that we have technological questions about what can be the future of our technology, for example, the last collection or the collection that we’re currently also continuing and focusing on is a collection that focuses on the fashion markets.

[00:26:41] In 2019, I asked our designers to think about the way that. a color, eh, and morphology is practiced in nature.  if it is on birds or insects or butterflies, and to translate this intelligence through optical solutions that are offered are designers and by optical solutions, I mean, different planting, color structures, lenticular structures that that wants to say different lenses that when you look through the lenses, you see one color. And when you look at it, another angle through those lenses, you actually see another color. I don’t know if you’re familiar with those almost holographic, like postcards that when you look at one side, you see Jesus crying. And when you look at the other side and smiling kind of this idea, but then obviously in the 3D realm and on a higher sophisticated level, but this is a basic thought, like, how do you translate color through structure?

[00:27:42] And don’t forget that. Also, when we talk about our technology, we are printing in a very, very high resolution. So we’re really going into a microscopic structure and trying to understand how to do it. We bring into the design world, the intelligence of organic and biological design  through the means of 3D printing.

[00:28:03] So for the collection and the collection was titled “Chromorfo” as two minutes, because it’s also the more, the chromophore is a butterfly, but at the same time, it’s also the question of chromatics and morphology. And how do we help with architectural or nano architectural structures, the expression of realistic or hyper-realistic design and flow of textaile. So this was the theme of the collection and then embedded as a solution of 3D printing on textiles to generate new solutions for fashion. Can will make garments that change color. Thanks to movements. Can we depict and we will visualizations and eh, ideas for the fashion market or the textile market in general, through the solutions of 3D printing?

[00:28:56] And with this challenge, I go to our designers and the designers will be either three as four in New York or the team of Zaha Hadid, or Neri Oxman, Julia Koerner, or young artists say like Gannett Goldstein, et cetera, et cetera.  we bring these thoughts and these questions and let our designers work on finding solutions.

[00:29:19] Now it’s of course the designers start with a building up the solutions and concepts. We dialogue about it. We evaluate them. I generally look at the work that the designers bring to the table, and I know also why I choose the designers and I know their strengths and their creative language, and I help them to bridge the solutions to enhance and to enhance the outcome and also to go closer to their own creative intelligence, if it is by supporting design ideas, or if it is by offering technological solutions that can help them enhance their creativity. So that is, that is one aspect of challenging the creativity.

[00:30:05] Of course, the other aspect which we facilitate to the designers is often our connection into the cultural world. If it is by working very closely with museums all around the world, if it is the Cooper Hewitt, if it is the Pompidou, if it is the Design Museum in London or all. All the greatest design museums around the world.

[00:30:29]we often also want the designers to work on a very, very high artistic level. So we are able to incorporate the works in these institutes. So it’s already putting our demand, or let’s say putting the expectation on a very, very high level when we tell our team, okay, guys, we want to launch our collection in this Institute or in another Institute.

[00:30:54] please let’s do something that really would revolutionize the design. It journalistic audience and the, and the spectators. So that is another tool that we have of course, or an aspiration, I would say, because nobody’s asking us to do this, but this is where we really believe that our forefront should be placed at.

[00:31:17] Nir Hindi: [00:31:17] Yeah, I think it’s amazing that the CEO and the management of the company, put effort and resources obviously too, develop something like this. reAnd I think it’s a great example. What I call creativity commitment. I always claim that creativity. It’s not a matter of resources. It’s a matter of commitment and no matter in which level of a company you are, it can be three people and it can be 300 people in 3000 people. If you decide that creativity should be part of your DNA, there are things to be done. Obviously, in your case, it’s something much more, I think, impressive with the ability to deliver technology and knowhow, and I’m interested, you started to speak about the way actually those collaborations take care, places that you have an idea for a collection, and then you reach out to artists.

[00:32:07] If there is an artist with a crazy idea, can they come to you? How does it work?

[00:32:12] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:32:12] Most likely not most likely I would select the artists that I’m interested in because of the, the earlier point we mentioned, I’m not necessarily looking for the one time physical expression I’m looking for the creative mind.

[00:32:28] It’s more important for me to build up a longterm relationship with creative minds than to have a single physical expression. And creativity in this sense is also dialogue. If we are able to have a fruitful dialogue, if the stream between left and right, the ability to engage makes all parties happy.

[00:32:51] That is a successful collaboration. And choosing a designer is as good as choosing a friend. It is a trust party. It is a person that also exposes their emotional creativity, their feelings, and they, their cultural heart. We are exposing our secrets, our technologies, which is our business hearts.  and to get it with his party, we want to generate a very strong bond and the ability to understand very deeply, how we want to progress.

[00:33:28] So. This really requires a deep understanding of who is the person that we are going to work with in all the qualities or in the, all the creative and human qualities that compose this together. It will happen very rarely of course, that somebody will come to us with a project and we will support it.

[00:33:52] This is a something that we also choose to do sometimes, but it’s different than the longterm collaborations that truly interests me to encapsulate in our business profile.

[00:34:05] Nir Hindi: [00:34:05] We will put on the show notes, the link to the website dedicated for all the previous collaboration you had. So you can check it.

[00:34:12] So I want to ask you to do it now about. The 3D industry general. I mean, you have been in this industry for 20 years and it became super popular in the last few years. Uh, people are getting excited about it and I want to hear your perspective, what are the trends? What are maybe the futures that you see? Why it became so popular recently, and just kind of an expert thoughts about this industry.

[00:34:37] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:34:37] Maybe we have to begin with an utopian, a vision about what 3D printing is and then bring it down. So, first of all, there was something crazy about a 3D printing, since it is almost a creation of something out of nothing, right? You really literally go from a non materialistic DNA and it tells your data file your idea that is brought into code.

[00:35:04] You bring it through the machine. And on the other side, you will get an object. So if there’s any kind of alchemy, if there’s any kind of God-like, eh, the finger that touches the dust and something comes out of the dust, then that’s this. Okay. So first of all, we have to recognize that there is something very, very magical happening here.

[00:35:29] So, first of all, the, the method of three D printing, that’s already very magical, then it comes the question on how do we generate a smart manufacture? How do we a do, how do we create in the same wisdom almost that God has created nature or that God has created the earth? Oh, what can we do now? Suddenly all the possibilities are open and this is also true for 3D printing.

[00:35:58] All the possibilities are open. We don’t have a mold, we don’t have a structure. We don’t have a limitation of material. It’s like a Lego that just can answer any fantasy that you have. So we are really starting up very, very slow understanding of what can be the future means of three D printing. If you can choose a product in which you have control over every little particle that composes this product, what is that product going to be?

[00:36:28] And by particles, it could be the conductivity. It could be the color, it could be the material properties. It could be the geometrical structure, eh, that has total form freedom. Obviously we are in an environment of gravity, but for the rest has a total form of a freedom. To answer a certain product and then I have to go back.

[00:36:51] I think there’s also a biological dialogue that we have to do, like, okay. So how is our body composed? We have bone structure. We have certain tissue structure. We have liquid structure. We have intelligent particles that compose our body. So what a product it’d be able to be composed with the similar intelligence as nature did.

[00:37:13] What nature does animals people, a life structure. So we are really at the very, very basic beginning where at particle A, where a material, A B, C a. Sotoday our printers can mix maybe eight materials together and our printers can print or slowly learning to print conductive materials, metals, ceramic structure is a concrete combo combination or what we call a composed materials.

[00:37:48] So fibers together with liquids together with thermoplasty together with photo sensitive materials. this is really the very rough beginning. The future would be almost as nanotechnology offers. Conceptually the market possibilities, a future of 3D printing would really be a composition that is far greater than we even are able to imagine today.

[00:38:13] So 3D printing goes in too many fields. It goes to the automotive, it goes to the medical, it goes to the industrial.  it goes across all activities, but the intelligence that is still to be revealed in the world 3D printing is really the intelligence that comes close to the magic over the creation of, I say the word God, but yeah, you know what I mean?

[00:38:39] And I’m not, I’m not meaning this in a religious way, but in a fantastical understanding of looking at what has happening all around us and how is it possible to generate such intelligence structures with such high complexity and such high capacity efficiency, mobility and intelligence. So, This is really, I think the future of 3D printing coming closer to this kind of quality

[00:39:07] Nir Hindi: [00:39:07] we are getting into the end of our podcast.

[00:39:09] And I have few more questions to ask you, and I want to go back to one of the things you started to mention, and let’s assume now I’m a CEO. I’m a manager. You want to start collaborating with artists, what are the maybe three tips that you can give me? You already mentioned a good translator or somehow, but do you have another two tips that what makes a good collaboration between a company and an artist?

[00:39:35] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:39:35] So like any project? I think it is very critical to understand what you want to do. What is the territory in which you are going to play? What are going to be the rules of the game? A, what do you want to offer and what you want to receive in return? The better you’re able to answer these questions like you would do with any kind of project.

[00:39:57] This is very, very helpful to have.  because also once you get started, you really need a good guideline. You need to know how much you want to put on a table, how much time you want to put on a table? What, what type of results in how you’re going to measure the results so that you can really see that what you’re doing is a worth while your investment in your time.

[00:40:23] Once you get started. Yeah. They, you might lose connection with your initial start point. So I think it is. Always critical when you work with artists and designers, because you’re going into a place that has no rules, try to define the rules of the game that allow it even just very basic rules and basic expectations so that you can see that we achieve it, or we didn’t achieve it.

[00:40:47] And you can also, once you step forward in the project, if you say, okay, we will evaluate every X- months, we will adapt the rules as we go, but give yourself certain. It periods of time that you can come back and check, do some balance and check for your company, how to benefit from the creativity. Now, the reason I’m so pragmatic in this is because many times companies, okay, let’s start a collaboration with an artist and then it wanders off and it never reaches completion.

[00:41:20] And it never reaches a place where. If there is an objective appreciation or ability to say, okay, we have done this and it is worthwhile to us because of ABC. And then as a result, you might, might tend to think, okay, that the results were not good. So let’s not continue this. Or you might think, okay, something was lost, but we don’t know where and why.

[00:41:47] I think that the rule is how appeal, uh, to engage. It helps you also to engage your productivity and it also requires, and some discipline is definitely required to bring the results out of the creative partner. So once you’re both a pooling from both sides, you have a better chance, I think, to bring the results to the table.

[00:42:10]I know that it is for many companies difficult to appreciate or to quantify what creativity could mean to them. Trying to define these guideline rules helps the practical side also appreciate and understand what our values that creativity could give to a company and just some basic thoughts. It could be okay.

[00:42:36] Let’s create an eye catching iteam. Let’s create a story that we can tell let’s create a CRI a particular design activity or a particular solution that’s is even more defined it. There could be many, many frameworks to bring in together. Artists and technology.  one of the methods could also be by saying, okay, we want to involve more creative people or collaborate with creative people in the, in the company so that our engineers and our team would think more freely and would feel better to come up with new ideas that are somethings more crazy so that our innovation in general would be enhanced.

[00:43:25] It’s important to realize that and it’s important to understand as a company, what you are benefiting from aware are these benefits could also be let’s make arts and sell it  you can get all kinds of targets brought together that’s what it also help you as company to appreciate.

[00:43:45] Have I done something, have I really created something and to measure and quantify creativity.

[00:43:52] Nir Hindi: [00:43:52] Yeah. I think you touched something very important.  maybe to emphasize, I would assume that everyone that listen to this podcast probably would say, okay, “I would love to know and to develop new technology”, like you develop  in the project with Neri to actually print and serve a new industry. This is the easy one. I think you touch something very important is that satisfactory, inspiration, imagination, emotion. The hearts of the employees is something also very important that often we tend to focus on the innovation in the product, forgetting that the tools don’t make innovation is people making innovation and how we can engage our teams in a more unique way, I think, as you said, it speaks directly to the heart. So yeah.

[00:44:38] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:44:38] Yeah. I mean, there are endless to be honest and then of course, speak in great favor over the collaboration with artists and designers and a bridging of being the bridge of these collaborations. Because I see on a day to day basis, how much added value and also business value that we bring to the company.

[00:44:56] It could be many times. Software solutions, material solutions, opening up new markets on a very practical level as, as well as selling the arts that’s we are composing and selling the design that we’re composing, but they’re are very practical, a measurable elements that these create creativity, collaborations bring to a company, but I fully agree that added value, the true added value.

[00:45:25] Is one the enhancement of the brand, the enhancement of the engagement of the people in the company, and then enhancment of the engagement of the consumers or the people who are not yet consumers towards the company. This is invaluable and, and often it is something that is more superfluous and harder to grasp a what it offers or what it quantifies.

[00:45:53] Nir Hindi: [00:45:53] Yeah. Wow. I mean, we didn’t even speak about your previous role, but they know me. You’re also an artist by yourself besides what you’re doing, whether you’re doing in your day to day, what is it that you do?

[00:46:03] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:46:03] So I do many things. I mean, my friends would say that I’m an artist in cooking. Eh, I do many creative things.

[00:46:12] Working with the artists is also my expression of the art. Of course and I also paint

[00:46:18] Nir Hindi: [00:46:18] beautifully. I have to say, and if you’re in, if you will allow us, we will put some images on our website as well.

[00:46:25] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:46:25] That’d be nice. Yeah. So I love painting. I always loved the drawing and painting. Since I was a kid. It’s a place where I have my moment to meditation and my moments of a coming together with great minds that I admire masters of a old masters arts in. Yes.

[00:46:46]Nir Hindi: [00:46:46] You gave us a lot of materials to think about and ideas from why companies need artists, how actually 3D and outworking together, these exciting new innovations that you brought from the project with Neri so many, I think, relevant topics that we often talk about at The Artian and how art can drive innovation, inspiration, imagination in the world of business.

[00:47:13] Naomi I want to say big thanks for taking the time and speaking with us, I’m super excited to learn about your future project. I know that you are already cooking something very, very interesting that we cannot share yet,  but stay tuned to what Naomi is doing and I’m positive you will get a lot of ideas.

[00:47:32] Naomi. Thank you.

[00:47:33]Naomi Kaempfer: [00:47:33] I think we could have continued the conversation for another few hour

[00:47:37] Nir Hindi: [00:47:37] For sure. So thanks.

[00:47:41] Naomi Kaempfer: [00:47:41] Thank you  so much Nir it was a great pleasure.