A short-circuit between art, design and information technology has given rise to Next Creatures, a visionary collection of works in marble – the fruit of the interaction between the experimental flair of Raffaello Galiotto and the potential of computer controlled machinery. The volume accompanies the exhibition held in Milan from April 14 to 23 at the ADI Design Museum.

Raffaello Galiotto, an industrial designer who makes frequent forays into the field of art, is working on an intriguing challenge: the leveraging of sophisticated parametric design programs, connected to robots, as part of his cutting-edge research geared towards the shaping of stone.

The works, made using exquisite types of marble, draw their inspiration from the bone structures of vertebrates, the chromatic symmetries of plumage and the serration of leaves. This contamination between the animal and plant kingdoms generates mysterious fossil remains and seductive exoskeletons of improbable sea creatures.

This is a visionary collection that stimulates the engagement between nature and artifice, here driven by a new expressive code in which stone encounters the digital machine in an antithetical relationship between robot and human.

Volume in Italian and English. Translation by Gordon Fisher, Liquid Translations, Glasgow.