Watch a video showing Time.

technique: shadow cloud produced via SLS 3d-print
size: 3 images, each 74 x 74 px, ball of diameter 36.7cm

“Time” is a 3-d printed orb that has a formless, unorganised geometric structure. From certain angles, the alignment of its skeletal shapes and voids causes it to cast a shadow that is a legible image. Here the shadow tells the time as a standard clock.

From other angles, the image changes to something else.

I am intrigued and amused by the procedure and choice of fabrication method in this piece. I think the use of 3-d fabrication here feels instinctive, natural, and neccesary: to make the sphere using analog methods, would just be a real pain. The motion of the sphere and the shadows coming into alignment and misalignment are a form of suspense and release that is very engaging. Having said that though, I find the reading of the clock, sundial, and giant orb as a little crude and really mars the elegance of the activation.

watch the “making-of” video, 0:40 for really finnicky 3-d printing post-processing procedures.

#making-of

Another interesting thing that isn’t really 3-d printing or digital fabrication (but probably modelled in some sort of CAD software) is Yuya Ushida’s XXXX_Sofa. Its an expandable sofa/chair contraption hand assembled from chopsticks and metal rings. I like it because, going beyond the functional furniture design reading of it, it deals with issues of living (architectural) space, solidity, functions of the body, and interactions between bodies and materials/objects. I just thought this would be informative for friends interested in mechanical things to look at.

watch?v=RvW9xN6bE8w&feature=related

Record Assignment 1a Screen Shot

Description: This assignment asked us to create a design algorithmically by methodically repeating the same processes on an object.

Material: handmade paper

(file included after the next assignment)

Record Assignment 1b Screen Shot

Description: This assignment asked us to use a bitmap image as a background and trace out an image.

Material: handmade paper

files: Record-Assignment1

Record Assignment 2a Screen Shot

Description: This assignment required us to make a box with a very specific function. This box is intended to encase and disable a hand.

Material: 1/8″ mirrored acrylic plexi

(file included after the next assignment)

Record Assignment 2b Screen Shot

Description: This assignment asked us to make a box intended to be a scaffolding structure for a skin made in a different material.

Material: 1/8″ MDF

Files: Compressed Box Assignments

Assignment One: Algorithm

Description: Pattern of a nut is repeated through rotation, translation scaling and iteration.

Material: To be cut out of 240 grit sandpaper.

Assignment One: Real Trace

Description: A contour trace of a slug taken from a top down photograph.

Materials: To be cut out of a paper kitchen towel or large sponge sheet.

Assignment 2 - One: Box made from One Material

Description: Design for a functional, medium load bearing pencil pot.

Material: To be cut out of 1/4″ MDF

Assignment 2 - Two: Box made from 2 materials

Description: These are “soft bricks” made from two materials, plywood and cloth, using a basic interlocking frame as a skeleton, and wrapped with canvas. The canvas is detailed with the holes typically of standard building bricks. There will be ties cut out to facilitate tying of the corners. These hypothetical building materials attempt to subvert the notion of anchorage, heft, permanence, solidity, and strength that one normally associates with bricklaying and housebuilding.

Materials: To be cut out of 1/4″ birch ply and unbleached cotton canvas tarp.

Please find all four files in the zip folder contained here: assignment 1 and 2

I took a picture of my mouth and iterated the transformation in Photoshop. Then I traced it in Inkscape. Then I imported to Illustrator in order to import into Rhino (because Rhino surprisingly does .ai but not .svg). I chose a spiral because I find spirals tend read the same way in 3D as they do in 2D, so this sort of graffiti stencil-type image would also make sense as a physical object.

This is a trace of my hands making a bull or goat shadow puppet. I used the same workflow of camera->PS->Inkscape->Illustrator->Rhino. The two pieces correspond to my two hands. They are meant to be cut out of slightly differently-colored acrylic in order to read as a contiguous silhouette while still hinting at the origin of the shape.

1. Study all examples listed in the “Digital Fabrication and Art Practice” post; spend about 5 to 10 minutes with each work and its artist, and possibly more with the exhibitions. Be prepared to explain, discuss, analyze and critique each project and its relationship to the topics of this course;
2. Find another example of digital fabrication within the context of contemporary art practice (one that is not in the above post) and be prepared to explain, discuss, analyze and critique each project and its relationship to the topics of this course.  Post an entry to this blog with links, images and a description of the project (please choose the appropriate categories for the posting)

CONVERSATION STARTERS [for meditations on who how when and why contemporary art intersects with cnc/cad/cam/digital fabrication]

• Lost of Art by many different artists
• “Re-sampling Ornament“, 2008 exhibition at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel in  [see write-up by Régine Debatty]
• “Design and the Elastic Mind“, 2006 exhibition at New York’s MOMA  [see under “3D Printing”]
• TheVeryMany, including Skylar Tibbits (“Leaf Table“, “Passive Folder“, “n-Edge“, “Responsive Wall“)
• “Table Cloth for Courtyard” by Ball Nogues Studio
• “EyeWriter” by Zach Liberman, “EyeWriter Robot” by Liberman, Theo Watson and Golan Levin
• “Graffiti Analysis” by Evan Roth
• MakerBot Experiments by Marius Watz
• “Time Print Machine” by Paul Ferragut
• “Sculpture Motion” by Mathew Schwartz
• “Flight Assembled Architecture/Architectures volantes” (video) by Gramazio & Kohler and Rafaello D’Andrea
• “Animaris Ordis Parvus” by Theo Jansen
• “Piñata” by Artemio Rodriguez with the help of Robin Schwartzman
• “Tactile Photography” by James Patten
• “Growth Modeling Device” by David Bowen [see also his many drawing devices]
• “A Week in The Life” by Andreas Nicolas Fischer

Please refer to this document for hours and policies for the 2012 CMU Doherty Hall lasercutter: hours & policies.

This is a simple geometric box that I created by drawing a sphere in Rhino then changing it to a mesh with a very small number of polygons.

I created planes from the mesh and unrolled the planes to form a template. Then I added in tabs so that I could fold it up and glue it together.