Neri Oxman shows 3D printing in its full glory

Neri Oxman, professor at the MIT Media Lab, has recently gone on a 3D printing spree and created a beautiful collection of objects that represent the state of the art of this additive manufacturing process. More than that, it is an interesting conceptual probe into a future where we can interweave these sorts of objects more and more with our own bodies, as 3D printing allows a sophistication in design approaching that found in nature. Professor Oxman has shown that now we can produce objects of unlimited geometrical complexity, consisting of different materials that can smoothly transition in terms of properties such as hardness, thickness, or color.

Now the first 3D printers that are interesting to the mainstream consumer have emerged on the market, we will need to see how this democratization of design will turn out. Are we entering a future where everyone will become a designer through trial and error, and even more throw-away objects are produced with these technologies than happened after the plastics revolution, or will people learn faster this time and be more careful in what they create? With this creative power comes responsibility, of course, and it might be that because people are so closely involved in the making process that it helps them taking on this responsibility, just like, say, you take responsibility for the quality of the turkey you make for Thanksgiving; it has to be exquisite. Same goes for creating objects with our 3D printers - let's all take Neri Oxman's work as a good example of the objects to come.

Eight objects of the collection, called "Imaginary Beings," have been included in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou, so it might be worth paying a visit during your next trip to Paris. Also, here is a video that shows you the objects in more detail:

Also check out her personal website, where you can see some other interesting projects she has been involved in, some of them venturing more away from raw art and towards contextualized, embodied product design. A beautiful example is the Carpal Skin glove, that can be made uniquely according to the physiological requirements of each user.

3D printing taken to the next level

It's good to see entrepreneurs popping up who are taking 3d printing to the next level, and searching for business opportunities for new products manufactured by this technique. One of these entrepreneurs is Siavash Mahdavi. He is especially looking into optimization of form through intelligent weight reduction and force redirection, and has come up so far with prototypes of orthopedic implants that bone can grow into, optimized shoe soles that vary in support and cushioning, an engine block with 22% weight reduction, and a structure that he intends to use for docking shuttles at a space station.



Watch his recent TED talk here:

3D capture of bird flight

It's the sculpture-equivalent of Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, this sculptural work by Geoffrey Mann. He used long-exposure photography to capture a bird's landing. Then he traced the contours of this bird and used them to sweep a three-dimensional form through. This gave rise to the beautiful shapes you see in these pictures. It would be interesting to also do such studies for the air around the bird, so we get a more embodied insight -complementing the scientific and conceptual- into how air really behaves when manipulated by organic shapes, and how these shapes have evolved for this manipulation.

Scripted products by Lionel Dean

Of course it's nothing new that rapid prototyping techniques are giving rise to wildly innovative three-dimensional shapes. It's also nothing new that these techniques are still quite slow and very expensive, so still not interesting enough for design for the masses. It is still interesting though to see what kind of form repertoires different designers are coming up with, within this radically enlarged scope of potential. Some designers keep it minimal and functionalistic, some try to create more elegant, abstract versions of nature, some develop a more edgy and sharp style, and others go a bit more extreme and create very organic, chaotic and often alien-looking shapes.

Lionel Dean, founder of the company FutureFactories, belongs to the latter category. He develops objects that seem to be taken directly out of the jungle of Pandora, that extraterrestrial realm in Avatar. His work is closer to bio-fantasy than biomimicry, as he seems to emphasize artistic freedom more so than functional constriction. A quite innovative aspect of his products is that he uses scripting to generate the forms, while only providing a fixed 'meta-design' to the computer. The designer here, as a blend of man and machine, creates completely unique products.

Fabbing strandbeesten

Ah, finally we hear again from Theo Jansen. The man has turned to 3D printing as a way to manufacture his famous 'Strandbeesten'. For about a hundred American dollars you can now buy your own miniature Strandbeest from Shapeways.

And they work magnificently:



In the following video you can hear some comments from the man himself.



Theo Jansen really seems to be an incarnation of the old lone master, who develops stunning works that will root themselves in the collective unconscious of mankind. And maybe sustaining his level of genius requires his mind to be more isolated from the more mundane processes of society. On the other hand, I tend to think that more challenge and enrichment can be found through combining work both on an internal level through deep study, creative exploration and masterful synthesis, and on an external level through trying to manifest this creativity into the world in various ways. Theo Jansen seems to be only active on one far end of this spectrum, and keeps his creations very pure. He does want to spread them, as he mentions the objects seducing us to make them. But I think we can spread them faster by creatively searching for ways to make Strandbeesten, or maybe just the mechanic principles behind them, marketable. To give an analogy, the yogi can sit in the mountains -or on the beaches- all his life, having transcended his personhood and having found higher states of consciousness more worthy of residing in, but he can only become truly enlightened if he learns to take what he found into the world and spread it there. Maybe this means that initially only small bits will take root here and there, but at least it's pushing things in a better direction. I would like to give Strandbeesten jobs, for example in becoming billboards, because those would at least be nicer billboards than the ones of today.

3D printed portraits

Perhaps after the time in which we all experience our media in three virtual dimensions, the era comes where the entire physical world will also be part of the mediasphere. This little installation here, presented at the TEI conference, might be an early precursor of this technology. It at least shows how interesting it is when things become open-source and we can combine whatever technology we like with whatever other technology, to create things like this 3D portrait printer.



Now in being critical you might take the environmentalist position and say that such developments unnecessarily waste material. But then also ponder what 'necessity' really means. When we reach a level of physical stability and safety, we naturally start needing social recognition, and technologies can greatly help people in developing a social self. It is through our technologies that we get mirrored, and with this feedback we can grow. Seen from this perspective, materials can become magnificent aids in the process of emotional development.

Iris van Herpen's new fashion: more beautiful, better, and uncut

Maybe somewhat in line with the notion of the design paradigm of 'biological modernism', take a look at Iris van Herpen's new creations. We know her from the intricate 3D printed garments she showed up with last year, but the new ones really 'nail' the design language, and give almost a spiritual feel to these three-dimensional structures.

Structure as ornament

Rapid Prototyping techniques are slowly taking over the design business, with Malgorzata Mozolewska here establishing a chair design that is quite an icon for this age. Where we are used to thinking about 'structure' as massive, clunky elements roughly fabricated together, and about 'ornament' as fine, flimsy, hand-crafted details, here the two ends meet and the ornament becomes the structure. Adolf Loos couldn't have disagreed here. Objects this way become more immaterialized while retaining a meaningful embodiedness, and it has a delicate aesthetic quality to it that is in line with the manufacturing process.