3-D Printing of the Old and New

What comes to mind when you think comfort? Space age technology? Your skin forming jagged waves of the “brain”? In the ArtNEWS article “Brancusi & Brain Waves: 3-D Printing goes to the Museum” and written by Stephanie Strasnick, Lucas Maassen and Dries Verbruggen from the Belgian design team Unfold created their collaborative 2010 creation Brain Wave Sofa which will make its debut at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, curated by Ron Labaco. Using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor his brain waves while he closed his eyes and thought of the word “comfort,” Maassen’s brain wave data was then translated into a three-dimensional image programmed to a computerized milling machine called the CNC mill to carve out a foam replica of that image and is one of more than 100 pieces featured in “Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital.” 

Maassen and Verbruggen, Brain Wave Sofa, 2010

The exhibition, which will open on October 16 at MAD will showcase works of art, fashion, furniture, etc. that has been constructed using the technological devices of EEG, etc.What many might find even more fascinating is the encouragement of public engagement with how these technologies work. Francois Brument’s Vase #44 (2009), for example, allows visitors to speak into a microphone that uses a special algorithm to translate a voice into an image of a vase, determined by the speaker’s volume and duration of speech.

The elitist individuals that lead the museum of today and of the past have long prevented the museum from taking the course it needs to take. The implementation of education, therefore, is the progressive element that we have sought as part of the museum experience to allow for a greater connection and engagement with the general public. Popular education, as Theodore Lowe states, embraces all aspects of human activity, of increasing the knowledge, happiness and experience of the individual. But unlike formal education, Lowe seeks an education that is a voluntary act of the individual. It is commendable, therefore, to see a prominent institution like MAD reaching beyond the conformist approach to the museum experience for an experience engaging, and voluntarily promoting thought, action and experience. This exhibit incorporated a wide variety of engaging works of art that teach visitors that technology and visitor engagement is critical to the development and exploration of further innovative and provocative modes of art.

Hornby's I never wanted to weight more heavily on a man than a bird (Coco Chanel), 2010

And in an age of technological advancement, in which the visitor and public might generally associate technology as contemporary, what is striking about this exhibit is its incorporation of high-tech artworks that derive from 19^th and 20^th century art history. In Nick Hornby’s 2010 I never wanted to weight more heavily on a man than a bird (Coco Chanel), the visitor is introduced to computer-controlled hotwire that combines Brancusi’s Bird in Space and Rodin’s The Walking Man  into one sculptural piece.

http://www.artnews.com/2013/10/07/3-d-printing-at-mad/

Theodore Lowe's "What is a Museum"