‘Pillow II’, is a sculptural work created by digital designer Lucy Hardcastle exploring our relationship between the digital and the senses. This series of photographs of ‘Pillow II’ were created with Gareth Williams, with whom the artist has collaborated with creatively and commercially since 2015. Collaborations include their UNIQLO Airism and Channel 4 campaigns. Following a studio shoot, the images are then manipulated using photography software to create Hardcastle's ‘hyper-real’ presentation of the objects.

‘Pillow II’, and the other works in this series, is an early example of Lucy’s more experimental work that complements and informs her commercial practice. These works encapsulate Lucy’s creative philosophy and typify an approach to design which can be described as ‘postdigital’, in which technology seeks to become more human, emotional and tactile. The work enables an engagement with the senses, such as touch and taste, with digital phenomena, moving beyond a purely technical relationship with technology towards one which is more complex and embodied.



The designer

Lucy Hardcastle (b.1992) is an interdisciplinary digital designer and artist based in London. Her work focuses on tactility, visual illusion and sensual aesthetics through digitally rendered pieces, sculpture, set design and moving image. Using software such as Cinema4D and Blender to create her sensory pieces, Lucy also deploys physical objects and photomanipulation to create series of works that play with material, light and texture.

Lucy graduated with an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art, London, before founding her own studio in 2017. She first began to experiment with computer-modelling technologies to produce rendered images showing tactile textures and hyper-realistic 3D shapes while studying for her BA in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art & Design.