physical-digital-physical

The ability to digitise a three dimensional object into a data file, and then transform that file back into a physical material continues to fascinate and baffle me. The Google Glass and 3D Printing communities have been intrigued by a story that was released last week in which an object in a public place was '3D scanned' by google glass and then 3D printed.

The idea that by simply looking at something (through glass) may give us the ability to effortlessly and physically recreate objects certainly has some very serious implications upon not only specific fields of interest and industry, but also on how human's interact with and understand materiality. That objects no longer have to physically move through time in order to get from one place to another sounds like sci-fi fantasy - but it is quickly becoming more and more of a realisable and practical)  reality.

Obviously, this kind of development is inevitably going to have a really important impact on the museum and heritage industries in particular - especially since Todd Blatt (the guy who did this last week) used a bust from Walters Art Museum as an example of recreating an artwork. Perhaps certain kinds of technology simply aren't compatible with traditional ideas and values of 'the artwork' -  in which case, measures will have to be made either to conserve such ideas or eradicate them. An interesting balance.

Full story here via Shapeways.

Charon: Sterling Crispin and 3D Printing

Charon, by Santa Barbara-based artist Sterling Crispin, is a 3D printed sculpture based on a flightpath performance involving an autonomous quadrocopter (and sensor tracking) and human interaction.

In the past, the concept - and thus the performance as enactment of that - has always stood as the most important part of a piece like Charon. The visible, documented (video) activity of Crispin interacting with the flying drone does very well to illustrate the tension between human and robotic agency as a means of making sense of the world. This theme constitutes the subject of much of Crispin's interesting work; throughout his practice, ideas of techno/life-forces, spirituality, entropy and virtual reality are explored, often by paralleling the human and the robotic (as in Charon). However, the possibility to make a material object out of this flightpath - as a 'shadow of this boundary crossing' (Crispin) - has been realised through the process of 3D printing. I'm really excited about how this technology can allow for a new kind of materiality - which is often simply a means of making data visible and three dimensional. Again, this work follows a developing tradition within 3D printed art of utilising organic forms within a technological context. I think the resulting sculpture stands as a beautiful art object that manages to bring the immaterial, spirit-like quality of Crispin's work into physicality. And there's certainly something rather magical about that.

Charon

Quadcopter, motion capture system, OpenGL simulation, 3D print, flat screen television
2013