2.5″ x 2.5″ x 2.5″
Time: 4 Hours.
Weight: 61 Grams.
Unfortunately, the virtual model is only a small part of the project as a whole, and the rest will only be ready after the object has been printed (or misprinted). The model is made up of layers of unprintable overhangs, which when printed will make an entropic shape that I have very little control over.
I wanted to look at the spectrum between the entropic and the orderly, the natural and the machine-made, and the perfect vs. the imperfect. Because 3D printing is a medium with the intent of creating to exact specification, making something with
Because of the unknowns in this project, I was tempted to dedicate a considerable portion of my time on this project to test prints and slight modifications in order to get the exact “misprint” I wanted. It took a lot of willpower not to do this. If I were to test the object, I feel that it would invalidate the project as a whole, by putting my own intention into a piece of work that’s intent is to prove the beauty of the unpredictable and undesirable.
When designing the model, I wanted to create something that if printed with no “mistakes” would be a rigid and firmly organized shape, but with the flaws in its printing would show a transition from the orderly to the chaotic. The bottom layer has no overhangs, and apart from possible bowing in the connecting beams should retain this brutalist aesthetic. At the top, the layers of overhangs will create something that I would not have been able to create myself.
This project was heavily influenced by Michael France and Alan Henaut’s essay Art, Therefore Entropy, which puts forth the idea that good art is related to its complexity, something inherently attached to entropy. While it is my belief that there is a huge amount of great artwork that is minimalist and simple, what makes that art great is the potential for complexity that exists within it.