More live than I meant to be

Attended my first Live Art Meet at Exeter Phoenix on Tuesday.  I was curious to know more about these new events, but didn't really expect to be part of the entertainment. However, interaction was required - even by unwitting drinkers in the Cafe Bar as, under the guidance of our host Claire Burke, we meandered our way through parts of the Fluxus Workbook.

I'm interested in performance but not performing. Nevertheless I will be brave and go back as it was friendly and fun. Events happen the last Tuesday of every month and are announced here:
http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/art/galleries-opportunities/art-meets.html

Blow up art

Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege (aka bouncy Stonehenge) visited Belmont Park, Exeter today and, after it had had a quick mop down, we all got on and leaped about. It is truly is the year of inflatable public art, though I think Sacrilege rather outshines Kurt Perschke's RedBall, which was here a few days ago.

Turning thoughts digital

Test piece in Meshlab

Working on my Digital Art Commission and getting a headache. The biggest problem is not coming up with ideas, but getting those ideas into a form that a 3D printer can work with. Anything you want to make has to be digitised and it has to have dimensions in three axes.

If you can imagine it, you can probably print it, but first you have to master a 3D design program. There are many sophisticated tools such as AutoCAD (used by architects and engineers) but, as beginners, we were introduced to Google Sketchup.  It's free and it's clever, but ultimately it's clunky.  If we had six months to do this, I'd work my way through it, but I have to produce a design by 10th August.

Can you re-model objects from the real world? Yes. There's a fantastic piece of free software that goes with cheap kit for home 3D scanning http://www.david-laserscanner.com/, but those scans still have to be stitched and cleaned using a clever but rather daunting piece of free software - MeshLab.

Can you import raw data and visualise it? Yes. That's what I'm trying to do, again using MeshLab. But turning numbers into objects can't be done at the touch of a button. I've needed a lot of help from a programmer friend, and we're not there yet. It's alien territory for artists as there are no test prints, no maquettes - nothing to touch. You work on a digital file and the next thing you see is your finished object. I guess that's why it's known as rapid prototyping.

I'm one of 30 artists participating in the Exeter Phoenix Digital Art Commission 2012, in partnership with the Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM) at Exeter University.

Making the virtual real

Gyroid by Bathsheba (made using additive layer manufacturing)

Amazing insights yesterday into a technology that looks set to revolutionise our relationship with manufactured objects. It all happened as part of my participation in the Exeter Phoenix Digital Art Commission, in partnership with the Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM) at Exeter University.

Additive layer manufacturing allows you to take highly complex digital designs (for example, filigree/lace, chains, gears, hinges, bone implants, origami, mathematical models) and construct them in a single process, layer by layer, as if you were printing them from your computer. No need for tool-making, machining, moulds or assembly. No need to worry about undercuts or hollows. You can make models in plastic, metal, plaster, resin, paper, wax...and soon (we're promised) in chocolate or ice. Artists and designers are already doing amazing things as you can see here. 

I'm still digesting the possibilities for my practice, but also the huge learning curve required to master the technology that will allow me to submit a design for printing later this summer.  I know that I'll be revisiting my work with flight, but I have a lot of technical issues to iron out.

In the meantime, I'm inspired by Markus Kayser's Solar Sinter Project. Venturing into the Sahara with portable technology, he replaced the lasers used in the high-tech sintering process with the energy of the sun to fuse ordinary sand into glass sculptures.