Developing my ideas towards the larger 3d prints has been challenging and I’ve found myself frequently hitting the limits of my technical ability with 3d modelling software. With the course taking place on a weekly basis, the pressure mounted as we developed our projects towards our larger 3d models on the SLS 3d printer. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology that uses a laser to sinter powdered plastic material into a solid structure based on a 3D model and gives a much more robust and refined result than the Makerbot desktop printers.
The apparent simplicity of the models I have been making belie a certain complexity. I often appropriate existing imagery and transform them to make suggestive comments on the nature of knowledge. Asteroid Bennu, as the subject of the current scientific mission OSIRIS-REX, offered a location to question one of its mission objectives: that its chemical composition might contain answers to the origins of life in our Solar System. In response, I wanted to open its structure up, to make simple cuts or incisions that would allow us to go beyond the undulations of its data-captured surface: to consider these bodies as both objects of science and enigma.
After sharing some work-in-progress with the Field/s peer forum last month, I was reminded of Roger Caillois’ The Writing of Stones. The book part documents Caillios’ incredible collection of image-stones [1]: stones which have been cut open and polished to reveal improbable pictures. His poetic writings describe how such natural markings direct the imagination to a hidden language of nature and the cosmos:
They proclaim the circuits of planets or electrons around their invisible centres or nuclei; they are an image of the fundamental yet simple law of gravity that links physical bodies together at every level of the Universe. They are the rings of armillary spheres. with their zodiacs and ecliptics and equinoctical zones – bracelets for cosmographers or nuclear physicists. They reflect the phantom revolutions which, alike on a vast and microscopic scale, unflaggingly repeat the same pattern. This is the blueprint of nature itself; both hidden and revealed in a nodule of silica, making known the blazon of the universe, the constant figure that governs it in its entirety. –Roger Caillois, The Writing of Stones
Having an interest in the use of mirrors and reflections in scientific imaging technologies and how they allow us see beyond our own limits, I wanted to use it as a substitute to the cut and polished surfaces of agate or jasper. Mirrors are also magical and illusory objects found in folklore and fiction. By inserting the mirror within the asteroid’s crust, its sleek surface where we find ourselves. Nylon filled with pools of semi-silver. In halves and laid open, it returns our gaze in a paradoxical act of revelation and concealment.
In order to create this, the shell of the 3d asteroid needed to be filled, extruded inwards to create a wall, and then downwards to create a recess the exact thickness of the mirror. It’s important to make thinks to the exact scale you will be printing at, when you scale up or down wall thickness will also increase/decrease proportionally. It is difficult to make accurate measurements in Maya and the triangles of the inner wall ended up conflicting with the outer wall. This is made more difficult by the fact that Maya doesn’t really show you any issues with your mesh while you are working – I guess because it is primarily geared for 3d animation rather than modelling where such issues are not so crucial. It was only during the evening course sessions I was able to use Materialise Magics (with the help of the course tutor) to highlight and fix problems with my mesh such as intersecting and overlapping triangles. It would have been useful to access this software off-site while developing my project. The shape for the mirrored section was created by screen-grabbing the asteroid and then tracing and sizing it in Adobe Illustrator ready for laser cutting.
Extracting the 3d prints from the printer itself was a tactile experience, digging them out of the bed before proceeding to sieve and air-blast them to remove excess powder. In fact, one of the things I have taken away from the course is how preparing and printing the 3d file can be only part of the process – there are many other manual processes that can be performed afterwards such as colouring, sanding and casting.
So, the course is nearly over but this really feels like the beginning. Having the opportunity to attend this course has given me a grounding in the area so I can continue to experiment using other materials such as metals [2], colour staining and electroplating, as well as moulding and casting in other materials such as plaster or Jesmonite – or even ceramics. I’m excited to develop this towards a more resolved sculptural installation, hopefully to be exhibited later this year with the Field/s Forum.
Further updates will be posted here. Many thanks to course tutor Anatol Just for his patience and support!
- Roger Caillois’ dream stone collection was donated to the Muséum National D’Historie Naturelle (MNHM) in Paris, where it can be viewed.
- 3d print bureaus offering prints in a variety of different materials include i.materialise and Shapeways
