Icon-fusion


Originally from London, Alicia Ongay-Perez trained at the University of the Arts London before studying Contextual Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. She recently returned to the UK to set up her own studio and began developing her latest project, Icon-fusion.

The basis for Ongay-Perez’s designs is her investigation into the properties and qualities of medium and material. In Icon-Fusion, she explores the potential of 3D printing, not as a mode of production but rather as a tool to appropriate the excessive amount of visual data available via online platforms such as Pinterest and Thingiverse. At a time when objects are defined more by their iconography than their use value, Ongay-Perez critically explores the importance of appropriating such data for generating form. Her studies of domestic objects led her to develop an app that generates teapots based on existing items, ranging from iconic designs to graphic representations of physical objects. Icon-Fusion is a digital tool that translates objects into abstract point clouds, allowing the user to morph between two distinct forms and pause the process to create a seemingly infinite number of intermediary hybrids. The app allows its users to speculate on the emergence of a new generation of derivative works based on iconic twentieth-century designs.