Based on the infamous foam-cutting technique - known for providing many interns a lifelong trauma. Generally, this technique is focussed on creating very regulated shapes and forms by controlling all parameters strictly, like temperature, movement and cutting along a linear path. This technique offered the opportunity to explore a new process to experiment with the great three-dimensional potential it has. Providing the machine, a range of silhouettes (front, seating, back, bottom) and a rectangular block of EPS, the user is able to compose the blueprint for their own bespoken bench. Every intuitive movement of the user is directly translated into shape. Each new route having the possibility to result in unique characteristics.

Martijn Rigters is a designer based in The Hague, graduated from the Royal Academy of Art. His projects explore the grey area between man and machine and where the designer takes position. During the process of creation the tangible emerges - an object - but also the intangible - appreciation and attachment to an object. 
By using the human body as a design tool and as an essential part of the process of creation, Rigters tries to amplify the relationship between user and object. Ranging from an installation where the user becomes a part of the process as a contramould (Foam Party), a machine that equips the human hand with a glove to directly manipulate the outcome (Lathe take away), to an installation that allows every intuitive moment of the user to be translated into shape (Cutting Edge). By approaching it technically and conceptually different every time, possible proportions between the human, the machine and the designer are layed bare.