Key to the work of Lucas Maassen is a process of validation through perception. To what extent are aspects of scale and matter fundamental to determine and pronounce typological objects? In a highly playful manner, Maassen manipulates the parameters of conceiving objects.
Utilising exclusive materials and technologies, another layer of conceiving objects arises. A toy chair made of pure gold, poured out of one bar of gold, raises the question of emotional vs. real value. Likewise, a chair created by a Focus Electron Beam (FEB), results in a chair so small that even a regular microscope cannot reveal it. This chair is a leap of faith into technological authorship. Our empirical reality is just not enough to capture these objects. To what extent is technological culture able to transmit empirical experiences to our mindset? And: our cultural tradition tells us that a chair has four legs but what happens when these notions are being challenged by a non-empirical, technological order?
Through applied characters derived from qualities beyond any man-conceived sphere, Maassen creates an imaginative order.
The publication features texts by Sonquis Moreno, writer/editor on design in various forms, and Freek Lomme, curator/writer and director of Onomatopee. Moreno lively portrays Maassen's 'design act' in its sphere of being, while Lomme playfully levels up the scope of his work to some ontological and empirical parameters. Furthermore, some processes and hypotheses hit the light within this publication!