I Creatively Misuse Tools: Cody Norman on New Possibilities for Automation and Robots in Design

Walker Publishing Filed to Design · Part of Houses of Ideas

Cody Norman in their Chicago studio, 2023. Photo by Kameron Herndon. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

As a youth surrounded by builders, Chicago-based Cody Norman went on to discover robotics, automation, and digital fabrication. Exploring the limits of these tools, Norman has developed a signature practice that reworks, and at times misuses, these tools of mass production to develop new ways of creating both art and design. For the launch of Idea House 3 at the Walker, Norman discussed the possibilities of reworking robotics, pitfalls of our plastic crisis, and how approaching preexisting tools and materials in new ways might reshape our world.

Jake Yuzna

Where are you originally from?

Cody Norman

I’m originally from Clearwater, Florida, and went to high school in Muskegon, Michigan. I spent half my life in Florida and the other half in the Midwest.

JY

How did you end up interested in design?

CN

I grew up as a son of a contractor on job sites. As a little kid I’d sit there and hammer blocks of wood together and make forms. Through that I learned that I liked the process of making things and [to] understand how materials work. Later on, as I learned more about the process of design, I became really excited about how you ideate, prototype, and troubleshoot.

JY

How did you come to be based in Chicago?

CN

I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). I was always creative and interested in art. When I was finishing up high school, my parents suggested that I could become an industrial designer or graphic designer—just not a painter. I told them OK, but knew that SAIC was known for being interdisciplinary. I was able to study graphic and industrial design as well as sculpture in order to learn processes and materials from other practices.

While at SAIC, I found out there was a 3D printer on campus, and I was immediately interested. At first it was an infatuation with learning the process of that machine. After learning more about the design process, it became more than just a digital fabrication tool.

JY

You are known for your inventive use of robotics. Is this where that started?

CN

Definitely. I started off with a scratch-and-dent 3D printer after finishing at SAIC. It was what I could afford at the time. I learned how to fix it, modify it, and then used that printer to build another printer. From there, I 3D-printed a little desktop-sized robot and started to learn about robotics. The hope for me at the time was to be able to get access to an industrial robot. I like to think that I creatively misuse tools. If I was on an island, like Tom Hanks in the film Castaway, and had a FedEx box with random parts in it, I could creatively misuse those items to make something. Even when I get a new robot now, I’ll probably try to creatively misuse it.

JY

Why do you think you are drawn to misusing tools?

CN

The core throughline of all my work is trying to shape and transform materials in ways that are uncommon to a general audience. For instance, plastic objects are typically molded, smooth, glossy, and sleek, with very little information of how they were made. Most people who interact with plastic objects don’t understand how they are made. In this specific example, I am trying to make objects that are crunchy, gritty, and kind of “ugly pretty,” for lack of a better term. Making people think about the materials that go into objects they live with thousands of times, but never really thought about how they were made. For me it’s about creatively misusing tools of industry to challenge people’s material perception.

JY

Could you give an example?

CN

Sure, this automated machine is a tool that typically is doing the same thing millions of times until it is deemed obsolete by an industry. This one was used to spray hot adhesive on car windshields in factories. I’ve altered it so now it 3D-prints small-batch production, anywhere from one to 300 objects.

JY

What led you to choose this machine? Had you always wanted to get your hands on one, or was it more of an opportunity?

CN

For graduate school, I decided to go to Cranbrook Academy of Art outside Detroit, really because it’s known for their 3D-design department, the history of design there, as well as its proximity to Automation Alley.

Automation Alley is a stretch in metro Detroit where a lot of automotive manufacturers were based that had an early investment in using industrial robots in their fabrication processes. A lot of the North American headquarters of these international robotic companies are all positioned right there. It is the hub of automation in North America.

Although Cranbrook didn’t have a robot, I knew there had to be a used robot, or some robots around, or a company I could approach to get a sponsorship in order to learn how to use it. Luckily, one of the largest used-robot resellers was just up the road. I talked with them and was able to gain access to a very large robot in order to learn on it.

JY

Does working and living in Chicago inspire you in any way?

CN

Absolutely. It’s almost overstimulating. You can be in a neighborhood that feels pretty relaxed, but then quickly change neighborhoods where it is chaotic. I call it a gauntlet, where it’s almost like a marathon and always high energy.

However, many different things influence and inspire me. Typically it’s walks in nature. Walking my dogs is often when my ideas or problem-solving solutions come to me.

JY

There is a school of thought that design is about tools. Do you agree with that, or have a different perspective?

CN

It is a push and pull. I must have a very good understanding of how my tool works. Sometimes the work comes from concept, and then I have to bend the tool to my will. More often than not, my practice is almost like a potter or a glassblower, where I am learning through the materials as well as the tools. Together, those factors drive the forms and what I can actually do. If I had thousands of dollars to throw at the robot, it could do bigger things faster and inform certain processes. Instead, I’ve learned what my limitations are and then how I can push them.

I come at it almost like this is a big digital pottery wheel that I’m controlling by hand. Since the tools and the robot aren’t always talking to one another, this feedback loop starts where the tool is going too fast or robots too slow, or vice versa. These effects start to happen that you wouldn’t typically see in industry.

JY

I’m curious how you selected plastic to work with. Is it because so much of the tools for digital fabrication were built to use the material?

CN

When I first started 3D-printing, I’d have these failed prints, objects, and they don’t have a recycling badge. They’re not a plastic that’s often recycled with PLA plastic [PLA, or Polylactic Acid, is a substance made from renewable resources, such as cornstarch or sugarcane, and a natural polymer designed to substitute widely used petroleum-based plastics].

I couldn’t just put the items I was making in the bin, and you can’t easily compost it. Instead, I started collecting it—and began to wonder what do I do with this stuff. This led me to discover the Precious Plastics Project on the internet, which is an open-source plastic recycling community. There you can build your own tools, learn how to wire them, as well as work with others that already build them and buy them. I ended up hacking a paper shredder and started shredding my prints. A friend, Lauren Bach, helped me bake a brick out of those, and we carved it with a CNC [computer numerical control] machine. That led me to wonder how I could use these printers to reuse plastic.

Later on, one of my classmates, Simon Anton, who had been working with recycling plastic for a couple of years, gave me some High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, which is a more easily recycled plastic, and said, “Try this.” I made my own extruder handheld tool and started to draw with plastic in the hopes of sticking that on the end of a robot. It was so much fun, I started making work with the extruder gun. Over the last three or four years, I’ve started using the robot for this.

JY

How do you select which materials, like types of plastic, you want to work with?

CN

In the case of plastic, we are living in a plastic crisis, with only 9 or 10 percent of all the plastic ever produced recycled ever. I’m not trying to become a recycling center, but I am trying to create an awareness and challenge people to think about what happens to that single-use yogurt cup. If you don’t clean it, does it get recycled?

I look at specific plastics: No. 2 on the recycling grade, like HDPE, and those with a No. 5, polypropylene. Both types of plastic have low fumes when they’re melting, and since I have asthma, I have to make sure I’m not being unhealthy. Additionally, I keep in mind what happens when the plastics I use are being shredded so I avoid producing microplastics. The material properties of 2 and 5 are very good for furniture objects and functional works. No. 1 plastics are really hard to work with but look like glass. A lot of the work you’ll see in the studio or with the baskets included in Idea House 3 has this glass-like materiality. People may think these baskets are glass, but they are really recycled plastic. This material perception is gold for me because I’m tricking people to think, “Oh, this is glass,” but it’s old water bottles.

JY

Are you exploring any other materials right now?

CN

When I was at Cranbrook, I learned a lot about working with clay, but then I just made plastic pots. Now we have a 3D-printing potter bot in the studio. I have experimented with that because I want to make works that have plants and organic things growing out of them. I also have a lot of reclaimed lumber that I’ve been looking at machining. I’m curious how these materials can be in conversation with each other, as well as plastic. Again, it’s about using the tools in new ways.

For instance, things are changing in the 3D-modeling space right now. How I’m generating the forms for the robot is shifting. Before it was strictly all 3D-modeled using computer programs. Now I will 3D-model something, print it, then sculpt it or add things to it, and then 3D-scan that. There is now a very fluid digital-to-analog process, of starting off analog and then 3D-scanning to making it digital. I can now use these tools fluidly and not be stuck with only using a digital or analog process to make something.

JY

How many robots do you have?

CN

We have about 10 3D printers in the studio of all different sizes and uses. There is also a CNC machine, so probably about 12 robots right now.

JY

Is it a growing collection, or are you set for now?

CN

My studio mate, Tom Burtonwood, jokes that I’m a collector of old industrial equipment. If one pops up tomorrow on Facebook Marketplace for a deal, it could definitely show up here. (laughs) It’s hard. I have to hold back on the tool hoarding.

JY

Do you have any hopes or goals for the relationship people might have when they live with your designs?

CN

I want people to be able to touch the work and feel the mix of crunchy, smooth, and sleek textures. I want people to handle the work. I’ve always been very inclined to want to touch the art in museums, and with my work I’m hoping people are actually using it. That they are putting fruit in these baskets. That it can have a functional, useful life.

I also hope that the plastic has been transformed enough that it won’t be recycled again. A big goal of mine is to make the work structurally sound enough, and beautiful, that people don’t want to recycle it. This isn’t a single-use fruit basket. It is a precious object.▪︎

Experience and shop for Cody's work in Idea House 3, located within the Walker Art Center. Open during regular museum hours, by appointment, or anytime on shop.walkerart.org.

Want to learn more about Idea House and the designer's involved? Discover the rest of the series Houses of Ideas on the Walker Reader.