MakeVR: 3D Modelling

Another element of the 3D Printshow fashion show that I managed the content for was an intro from MakerVR:

 

image via 3D Printshow flicker

explanation via prosthetic knowledge here:
http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/76142666969/makevr-kickstarter-campaign-from-sixense-for-3d#notes

They opened the show by contextualizing the 3D printed pieces via a demonstration of their computational design process.

3D Printing the Future of Fashion

Essay written for the 3D Printshow London and Paris catalogue. November 2013.

Words by Faith Robinson. 

Different things fascinate different people. Some of us decide to take an interest in engineering or medicine, whilst some of us choose to study art or read books about archaeology. But none of us can choose whether or not to get dressed in the morning - and that is to say that every day, all of us engage with clothes and materials.

Although wearing clothes doesn't necessarily mean that you’re interested in fashion, the fashion industry is very much integrated into the everyday, popular culture that few of us can ignore. What we buy on the high street often replicates – and is thus prescribed by - what happens in exclusive fashion design houses, exhibited periodically throughout the year and constantly changing from style to style. But the future of fashion no longer relies on seasonal trend. Through collaboration between a wide range of disciplines, as well as the inspirational technology being employed by these revolutionary creatives, innovative new ways to design and create fashion items are being developed. A fresh fashion perspective is being discovered - and 3D printing is providing the critical opportunity for these new ideas to be fully realised.

The curated collection of fashion pieces featured at 3D Printshow – both in our live catwalk event as well as our Fashion House - stands as an introduction to the progressive nature of fashions alliance with technology. Throughout the collection, there is an evident tension between traditions of hand-crafted skill and the incorporation of modern-day technological technique. Many designers have recognised this aspect of their work and highlighted it, using the juxtaposition as subject matter for their designs (Marla Marchant, Pia Hinze) and appropriating it for the wearer of such pieces. Conventional and well-established practices in the art of shoe-making, millinery, jewellery, tailoring and pattern cutting have collided head-first with the computational advancements of CAD design and 3D print production methods. Yet we believe that our collection only illustrates the success of this exciting, interdisciplinary approach to the design of fashion artefacts and garments.

Despite the abstract, algorithmic practice that some of these 3D printed items have been produced by, their concentrated focus on creating an authentic materiality reunites the garment with the wearer. The potential to customise clothes not only to a person’s taste, but to their unique body type is already liberating fashion- and is what many designers and industry professionals are getting particularly excited about. The exclusivity of made-to-order dresses and outfits no longer seems restricted to the opulence of Haute Couture.

Regardless of the numerous implications that 3D printing is beginning to have upon the world of fashion, there also remains the pure and simple delight that the technology is giving designers in terms of original, artistic freedom. Ideas that could never have been realised through traditional production methods are now being made material; eccentric and fantastic designs no longer remain conceptual, but are made physical. The excitement of such a revolution is evident within every fashion item present in our exhibition and catwalk, and some of the most elaborate pieces involved in our collection lay testament to the infinity of possibilities that this new technology offers.

Whether you feel like you belong on the front row of a catwalk show or not, 3D printing is only going to be making design more and more personal - and thus more and more relevant - to a wider audience of interested people. Let us introduce you to the future of fashion.

Smart Data: Safe & Secure Planet @ The Science Museum

@flexians @eyehub  #securiot
http://vimeo.com/77040326

I went to the Science Museum after hours last week not only to enjoy the large amount of free (and very good) white wine on offer, but to learn a little bit more about the term 'Smart Data' and the implications of keeping our data secure.

A 'quiet revolution' of people from all fields of industry and research gathered for an evening of discussion - which at times got rather heated - concerning solutions and suggestions to liberate the data that we all produce. Mostly, what was being opposed is the dominance of private information storage hubs (prime example: Google) which take the information we create (through use of the internet, our smartphones, etc) and use it for their own strategical benefit. A major change in attitude towards openness and privacy might offer us the potential to realise that innovation isn't with the holder of the data, but that the value of this information is found away from these large corporations.Thinkers and artists can provide new - and more 'cultural' - approaches to interpreting such big data; releasing this information can let more people 'get smart' and consider new ways to combat serious world issues.By fragmenting data into a distributive system of many small domains, we not only have a lot less to loose should something be hacked/corrupted, but we offer all kinds of 'non-tech' people he chance to use the tools and structures in place.

I also got the chance to have a look at the new 3D printing exhibition with no-one else around, which was great since some of our 3D Pritnshow team had helped do some printed at the PR exhibition opening the day before.

I was most excited by the trend I am seeing in acknowledging that culturally-educated/trained/interested individuals are slowly being given more opportunity to exchange with issues of Digital Humanities within a technological context. 'Big Data' is a vague and complicated term, but in my opinion can only be understood through a collaboration between people of different disciplines - rather than leaving everything to the (often) narrow-minded technologists as we have for the last nine or ten years.

I really hope to find my place amongst this movement. 

aqnb.com: The Space between Art and Technology - Algorithms

here

I've written a piece which investigates algorithm, coding, API and how these technological techniques can be interpreted (via particualr software) to create a visual output.

3D me

Today at work I got 3D scanned! I'm gunna be an action figure.

3D Printshow

Europac3d

aqnb.com: Curating IRL

here

An article I wrote for aqnb.com investigating content curation and the connection of links both online and as experience events.

LFW: upcoming lack of tech

There are no designers incorporating 3D Printing into their collections for upcoming London Fashion Week. The closest point of relevance I can find is that Christopher Cane uses 3D mapping techniques as inspiration. 

Shame.

'To Be': innovative networking

here

Link to article I've written for aqnb which explores further my investigation into To Be from gear talk a few weeks ago.

I'm really happy as its provoked some interesting conversation between myself and those in charge of the design of the network; I've also been invited to become a beta user, so I'm excited to start creating.

I'm hoping to develop these ideas further as a means of improving my BA dissertation ahead of its submission for the Digital Humanties conference I'll be attending in Russia in October. If anyone can help with travel grants or conference funding, please get in touch!

Identity crisis

3D Printing nationality shells for hermit crabs.

here

Natasha Fagg: 3D printed garment development

So excited to have discovered another quality designer investigating the aesthetic potential of 3D Print technology. Natasha Fagg (studied in Melbourne, interning now in London)'s collection Arthropoda investigates embellishment through the facility of technology; the resulting interesting, tactile garments are very impressive - and in the below shoot are very well styled.

Whilst there is certainly a recognizable aesthetic associated with 3D printed fashion design (very similar to the particular 'look' of 3D printed artworks that I wrote about last month on gear talk), the intricacies and visual delight of experiencing innovative new materials, fabrics and garment structure is certainly worth taking note of. Whilst this almost stereotypical 'futuristic' feel to 3D print fashion doesn't look set to develop anytime soon, the work certainly manages to investigate a varied set of themes and subjects. Fagg's work claims to 'explore adornment though two opposing elements'. By juxtaposing 'the crafted' against 'the engineered' through the use of 3D print design and production tech, the designer manages to marry the separate concepts into a single collection of pieces. Whilst this is a success, I would like to talk to Fagg about her work in a little more depth - one could argue that 'the crafted' and 'the engineered' are in fact the same concept in different forms. Either way, these pieces are the kind of objects that I'm desperate to see and touch in person - and I'd especially like to see them worn.

http://natashafagg.com/

Corrupted image art: more glitch

Photographer Melanie Willhide's work has been trending recently as an unexpected change was made to her practice - resulting in some really interesting images.

After having her laptop stolen and then returned to her, she tried to recover some of the work that has been wiped from her hard drive by the thief.

The process redeemed her files but they were corrupted, and the resulting visual is some really nice photography that has been informationally altered. I think that these glitch effects really enhance the already fascinating images by adding an additional narrative; the subjects (and the work) are placed into a different digital, context which as proved to be really popular all over the internet (and in person). What is so great about this work is that the effect was not intentional in any way. It will be interesting to see of the artist alters her practice to incorporate such a visual in the future - and whether or not that will be as successful as this collection, entitled To Adrian Rodriguez, With Love.

This story has only developed my interest in glitch from previous posts, and I'm going to do a bit more academic research into the subject.

via Slate

Nike: Making Matters app

Nike have produced a new app to help designers and developers make environmentally friendly choices about materials through the use of a free index.
This launch is particularly relevant with regards to new methods of production which minimise waste, along with on going investigations into brand-new 3D printed fabrics.

Taking 3D Printed Fashion (very) Seriously

Over the last few days, the fashion industry (in particular) has begun to take 3D Printing even more seriously as a direct result of designer Iris van Herpen's A/W 13 couture show at Paris Fashion Week.

 

 

Where to begin.

As a case study, van Herpen's latest collection not only illustrates a sophisticated understanding of material performance, but a deep-routed, narrative imagination. The theme of her collection formally marries an eclectic mix of stories, myths and ages: weeping willows sweep alongside hieroglyphics-inspired alien silhouettes; subtle palettes of ancient gold and treasure are juxtaposed between suggestive futuristic materials and post natural states of hybrid medusa transformations. The way these pieces move and sound with the model only add to the performative nature of this elaborate collection, and (very importantly) at no point are we allowed to forget that this is couture. This is drama, this is excess, and this is everything (and in my opinion, more) that you'd expect from the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture at Paris Fashion Week.

 

Aside from the awe-inspiring pieces that make up the "Wilderness Embodied"collection, van Herpen has achieved a lot with this show. Whilst some of the outfits are completely (fabulously) ridiculous, the designer has - for the first time with her haute couture - included some ready-to-wear dresses. This is a big step forward not only in terms of keeping couture relevant within the industry itself, but for the technology van Herpen has employed within the collection. Rather than simply creating accessories or 'armour' through the use of 3D printing (like in her previous collections), van Herpen and her team (particularly 3D printing company Materialise) have managed to produce a 3D printed garment: a complex, intricate single piece printed in one step. Some of her clothes are even machine-washable for goodness' sake.

 

 

 

This is no longer tech for tech's sake. Process' like 3D printing are beginning to establish themselves within the industry as totally viable technique options for creating pieces of parameter-shifting fashion items. And what's more, such innovation allows even more room for the development of concept and idea, safe in the knowledge that the impossible is quickly becoming manageable. Work such as van Herpen's offers a new perspective on production skill, pushing and maintaining the notion of craft in a whole-heartedly digital context. What I admire most about her work is the way in which this craft exists mutually alongside a variety of sophisticated, interdisciplinary tech - with emphasis on neither. Perhaps this balance is the secret to her success.

 

If anything, van Herpen's collection has only spurred our interest in - and realisation of the potential of - 3D printing (in particular) within fashion design. What I'm most excited for is the on going developments that we'll start to see in 3D printed materials, which have to be the next major area of innovation. Who knows what van Herpen and others might be creating this time next year.

 images via style bubble

 

P.S. The shoes created as part of the collection are going to need their own separate post. Whicvh I will write at some point.

 

Matthew Plummer-Fernandez

3D Print of algorithmic interpretation of a photograph

Venus of Google

Matthew Plummer-Fernandez

As part of my attempt to development my understanding and appreciation of 3D printed art, I've begun to research some interesting projects.

This commission incorporates the creation of his own image-comparison algorithm (as 'software') to 'sculpt' an image found on Google by using Google Image search as a translator. It is then digitally prepared for 3D print production.

Plummer-Fernandez's sculptures are far removed from the idea of a 'traditional', hand-crafted work; formed entirely out of information and produced entirely through machine and technology, they challenge the idea of the artist as well as the materiality of what the artist produces. One could go so far as to suggest that Plumber-Fernandez shifts the role of the artist by placing 'artistic direction' in the non-existant hands of the Google Image search algorithm - and this is a really thought-provoking, conceptual idea.

 The material, 3D printed result is visually rich and in many ways, unrecognisable as a traditional art object. It looks somehow super-imposed into real life.

This process can be applied to any image/object:

These pictures remind me of some work previously featured on gear talk by artist Katja Novitskova:

Digital fabrication is made explicit in these works - so much so that it completely forms the subject of some pieces. 

'Digital Grotesque' 3D Printed Architecture

From here

"80 million surfaces generated using 3D modeling software and mesh-based digital language have resulted in a series of 3D printed complex architectural objects by michael hansmeyer and benjamin dillenburger. entitled 'digital grotesque,' the work will culminate in a full scale printed room launching july 22nd; however, a 1:3 scale prototype premiered in the swiss art awards this week in basel, switzerland. the prototypes show a regard for both material sensitivity and the limits of technologically manipulated form-- millions of grains of sand bind together to create a new typology of sandstone and subsequently treated to be glazed and gilded. drawing from the algorithmic confines of the game of life and cell division, a set of simple geometries met with minimal parameters begets a highly involved form. the result is rich, shimmering composition ridden with impossible undercuts and a transcendental sense of the limits of technology. the term grotesque is derived from the unplanned complexities of a water-shaped grotto, itself a naturally occurring architecture long regarded for the uncanny presence of human-sized spaces in various landscapes. while hansmeyer and his lab in ETH zurich have long explored the confluence of algorithms, control systems and technology, the project works with the basic architectural idea of a room and injects an unprecedented sense of wonder into tectonics once held unchanging."

In addition, the binding together of  billions of grains of sand in 'Digital Grotesque' has much in common with the forming involved in the world's largest sand sculpture festival which has just kicked off in Blankenberge, Belgium.

Taking 3D Printed Artwork Seriously

Over the last few weeks, I've had problems coming to terms with accepting much of what is labelled '3D Printed Art' as art. There are many complicated reasons for the objections - all of which illustrate serious changes and developments in art (historical) vocabulary and terms of concept. Notions of objecthood, craft and skill, along with originality and replication all seem to be questioned by the introduction of a creative application of this new industrial production technology; it is interesting but scary at the same time.
In an attempt to get to grips with these complex changes, I'm going to look at and try to think about different 3D print 'artists' and their work from an art historical perspective - if possible. I'm going to try and makes links between this new, ambitious area of creative production and the kind of work I feel familiar with and comfortable discussing. In this way, I hope not only to discover and appreciate a group of art-makers that are new to me, but to somehow manage to work them into my own art-historical understanding alongside every other different creative media.

My initial problem with 3D printed 'art' is precisely that I'm not sure that it is art at all. What I mean when I say this is that the intention for making doesn't always seem to be artistic; much of the beautiful 3D printed work that I've recently come across seems to have its academic roots in either architecture or design, and for this reason, the 'sculpture' outcome often looks like an investigation of form or a prototype rather than a discrete piece of art in itself.
With this in mind, my other problem with the work is that it all falls under a stereotyped visual - that is to say that it so obviously looks 3D printed as it conforms to a very particular aesthetic. Mostly, this aesthetic is 'the organic': studies into naturally occurring structures such as coral, feathers, bones, crystals, sand dunes and other organic forms are used as the formal basis of the work - the creations of Daniel Widrig (below) are a good example.

 Daniel Widrig

As a result, it is hard to know what original ideas the work can possibly investigate. Suddenly, this category of artistic making seems incredibly limited: if 3D printing relies on its three dimensional form as a specific characteristic of the 'genre', how can an artist create a fully original shape?

It is clear that there are many serious problems for the artist -maker and the art historian to work through as a result of this exciting new technology.

Hands-on Art History

Through a Scanner, Skulpturhalle is a very simple project by a man called Cosmo Wenman, who simply wants to share some of art history's most classical works.
By 3D scanning a collection of high-quality plaster cast ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and 'publishing' them online as open source data, anyone (effectively) can own a 3D print of them. This has some simple but exciting prospects for the teaching of art history in schools and museums; perhaps a three dimensional replica of a great sculptural masterpiece will allow for a greater depth of appreciation - particualrly from younger people

Whilst such a concept very clearly illustrates the effective application of 3D printing in the creative education sectors, the project (for me) highlights the question of how truly original we can be with 3D printing when its best use seems to be replication.

Se Hang Kang: The value of 'handmade'

 
I went to the Fine Art Degree show at uni today, which is called £383,911.73. The show was pretty extensive, but there were only a few pieces that I liked.

One of these pieces was by Se Hang Kang, who created an interesting work called Singing Stones. The theoretical background for the piece developed from a consideration of the interconnections evident within Buddist philosophy, but more simply, Kang was mostly interested in creating art that could be given away. Lined along shelves covering one end of the exhibition wall, there were easily over one hundred individually made 'sculptures' which incorporated a variety of really tangible, colourful materials: beads, marbles, plastic foliage, and sequins had all been intricately pressed into twists of an organically-formed, foam material to create a large mass of beautiful objects. The viewer was asked to take one away with them, and I was really excited to choose which one I wanted to keep. By inviting the viewer to pick one, Kang set up a situation that encouraged a real study and appreciation of her created objects - I ended up walking up and down in front of her work for about twenty minutes trying to pick my own art.

Singing Stones is a generous piece in which a lot of time was clearly invested by Kang. However, my enjoyment of the work has certainly been heightened by considering her handmade work along side a new kind of art being created by a new kind of technology: yesterday, Makerbot was sold in a deal worth an estimated $403 million, which can only illustrate the importance of 3D printed production (throughout various industries) in the future. The application of this new kind of making within the arts has already posed some deeply important questions regarding the role of the artist in the creation of their art. With this in mind, Kang's work puts into perspective the value we still attribute to a handmade, perhaps even craft-based art that can be given away and owned - and it is the worry of many people within the creative industries that this crucial aspect of 'creating' may be lost through tech such as 3D printing.

Of course, there are some beautiful examples of 3D printed artworks. Arguably, the skill required to created a CAD designed sculpture is just as technical and potentially complex as the individual creation of 'sculptures' like Kang's, however, the real question here is where we hold the value. As previously mentioned, we still love and appreciate the material, handmade artifact. But I predict a development in this kind of appreciation - a change that will hopefully happen in sync with our ever-developing creative technologies.

 

He's impressed

PRISM

'Irreversible Noise'

'Irreversible Noise', Inigo Wilkins, as part of the Pavilion programme
26th May, 6 - 8pm, Mexico Project Space, Leeds

Can everything be then seen as a rhythm, a pattern that is beyond our comprehension, and exists independently of our knowledge of it?

Inigo Wilkins is a transdisciplinary researcher at the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College and is addressing predictability, auditory cognition, topology and computation in relation to noise and music. He is a fellow working at Mute magazine and the Post Media Lab at Lüneburg University.

I'm not going to try and explain the structure or separate points mentioned in the sophisticated and highly complex thesis being developed as an academic project by Inigo Wilkins. Fractality, entropy, pathological compulsion, epistemology, inference, neural functionality, patterns, consequence, action, abductive cognition, systems, aesthesis, perception, gesture and communication where all highly relevent themes; needless to say, the lecture was fascinating, if (at times, owing to terminology) a little difficult to follow.
I'm a huge supporter of transdisciplinary methods of approaching problems and concepts, and for Wilkins, such a method was perfectly applied to the concepts of both 'irreversibility' and 'noise'. Through his talk, Wilkins created an interface and access point for musicians, artists, technologists, anthropologists and philosophers to come together in an attempt to deconstruct these terms - and the resulting investigation was brilliant. It was evident that Wilkins was in the depths of his research; no question was left ambiguous, and the thorough delivery of each section of the presentation was important, allowing us to follow his carved-out line of thought. What was most impressive was Wilkins' knowledge of each of the fields of research and investigation mentioned within the discussion - the transdiciplinary academic has no choice but to specialize in multiple areas of academia in order to fully understand the concept being explored, which certainly can be challenging.
In my opinion, this approach to learning reflects changes in the systems and networks by which we now operate: digital humanities are changing the way we think and operate in the digital age. Although for many members of the audience Wilkins' approach was overwhelming, it is exciting to me that through a single investigation, connection can be made between multiple subjects.

For more information, see the links below:

http://www.pavilion.org.uk/pavilion.php?pid=4
http://irreversiblenoise.wordpress.com/