'Hugging and Poking Shelf' Contemporary Wooden Branch Shelf Schimmel & Schweikle

The “Hugging and Poking Shelf” functional art piece starts a dialogue about nature and construction. The seemingly unstable tree trunk is held up by three 3D printed branches, from which six tubes poke into the tree trunk. Apart from their outer irregular surface, the branch beams look straight and constructive.
The branch structure of the tubes is a homage to the natural and decorative quality of real wood but still takes the shape of a very constructive straight forward element. It asks the question can construction be decorative and can nature be constructive?
The branch that holds the shelf takes a different approach. It is wrapped around the tree by 3D scanning the tree and then digitally fitting the branch around it. It looks like the branch is hugging the natural state of the tree and does not want to interfere by screwing in or cutting parts away. The shelf that is attached to the hugging branch structure gives a slight suggestion of a function therefore this object opens up the paradigms between sculpture and utilitarian object.
This unique piece was exhibited in Schimmel & Schweikle's solo show 'A tree full of splinters' in the Antwerp based Everyday Gallery.

Rooted in material theory, Schimmel and Schweikle’s new series of works examines wood and its relationship to human progress, taking a close look at how it’s historical, cultural and political narratives have shaped the way we think of a design for centuries. Exploring the space between 3D modelling and craft, they invite us to reconsider the hierarchies between the hand made and then digitally manipulated. Simulated wooden ornaments assume a contiguously relational form to the texture they are mimicking, indistinguishable from the original except for the thin lines that give away it's 3d printed manufacturing. Wooden shelving in the shape of a branch, so perfectly tree-like that it replicates itself; the branches organic bulges repeated as if it were a block print. The pieces make you wonder which form would qualify as ‘more real’, an algorithmic search engine might decide on the 3D printed branches, as the articulation of physical properties that are attributed to wood are so perfectly pronounced in this digitally produced form. Baudrillard predicted that the simulation will become more real than the real, yet in the work of Schimmel and Schweikle they remain equals, assisting each other in function and form.

The dynamic duo Janne Schimmel (Dutch) and Moreno Schweikle (German) met at the renowned Design Academy in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.