Fast Forward

Starting off your design career with objects that can last tens of thousands of years: that was Ivan Kasner's daring choice for his graduation project, Petrifying. Its fossilised objects in it could raise numerous questions for future generations: when were these objects formed and when did they decay? What stories can they tell us? The people of the future will probably never know, and this was Kasner’s aim. Petrifying dispenses with all our notions of space and time.

It all started with Kasner’s fascination with the Petrified Forest National Park in the US state of Arizona, where fossilised trees have been preserved for more than 225 million years. “Buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash, the trees have remained remarkably intact," says Kasner, 27. “Volcanic ash contains a large amount of silica. This salt causes a natural preservation process that turns wood to stone."

The time machine

If nature is capable of turning matter to stone, why can’t a designer do the same? Kasner took that question to the Fraunhofer Institute, an organisation for applied research. “They study things like technological ceramics and its possible applications for industry," he says. “There’s a vacuum oven at the institute. In two phases of about a week each, the oven transforms objects with a natural fibre structure into fossils. In the first phase, the object is converted to carbon. That’s the pyrolysis phase, when all the gases and certain other substances are sort of squeezed out and the object shrinks by forty percent. In the second phase, silicone is added, exactly enough to replace the lost mass and fill the shape in again. So the oven is a kind of time machine: in two weeks, objects undergo an ageing process that would normally take millions of years."

Kasner put a dozen objects into his time machine. Four of them, including a cork and piece of clothing, were too thin and disintegrated. “After the first phase, the squeezing out, there was nothing left of the brittle materials," he says. The objects that made it through, which include a wooden spoon, a dish, a ball of yarn and a branch, make a strange impression. They have turned grey and resemble stone – until you touch them and look at them close up. Not only are they lighter than you would expect, you can still see details like the wood grain of the spoon. They therefore seem unexpectedly delicate and fragile. The effect is intensified when Kasner displays an object identical to the original alongside the petrified one: the wooden spoon is almost half again as big as the one that spent two weeks in the oven. The fossil is also more crooked. “Wood can warp," Kasner explains. “The ball of yarn stayed the same shape. This was why the Fraunhofer Institute was so interested in helping with this project. They wanted to see how different materials and three-dimensional forms reacted to the process."

Products that last… for 10,000 years

Why did Kasner choose to fossilise everyday objects? If you’ve got the ability to make things last forever, then why not use it on, say, living creatures? “During my studies I was often asked if I’d tried it on a mouse," he says, smiling. “And when my project was exhibited, funeral homes kept asking me if the technique could be used on people. I’d never thought about it that way until then. I chose objects from my everyday surroundings precisely because they often don’t stay in the living room very long. That’s a disaster for designers. You never know whether your design will survive even a generation. With these objects, I at least know that they could. I don’t pretend I’m expecting to go down in history with this, but I do think it’s crucial to make objects that last. Not every product should be permanent, though; that would be really boring, and, if you did it my way, unaffordable too at the moment. The petrification process costs a good two thousand euros. The price is relative, though, when you consider that a petrified object is genuinely timeless, and the material is extremely durable. It could be really interesting to petrify silverware. It often stays in a family for a very long time because of its material and emotional value, and if you make it from stone it will never get scratched."

Industrial alliances

At the moment Kasner and his friend the designer Uli Budde are working with a German technological textile company on impregnating textile products with bronze, copper and aluminium. “It’s a very new way of fusing materials with different properties and qualities," he says. Collaborating with big industrial companies suits him. “They have lots of money for researching new materials and production processes," he says. “Designers may often lead the way when it comes to spotting new needs and trends, but when it comes to new materials and techniques, you’re better off seeking alliances with big industrial companies. The fibreglass-reinforced plastic chairs made by my heroes Charles and Ray Eames, for example, were derived from material that was originally developed for the US Army. It was clever way of uniting the two worlds. Besides, I feel at home in an enterprising climate. I think young designers today are much more enterprising than they used to be. No one from my year at school has fallen into the infamous black hole. That bodes well for the future."