For long time I’ve been writing about this tool called technology and especially computers. And I have actually often emphasized that we should deal with this tool the same way we deal with a …brush, for example. We use tools whilst we never leave the tools to limit our inspiration and thoughts and this is a fact in life and not only in art.
Suddenly print-art started taking her place among art collections and computers escaped their limitations entering a world of text, music and video manipulation. Still everything was moving in two dimensions. And here I’m talking about the realistic, scientific acceptable dimension and not the dimension inspiration offers. And then on top of that came the new reality in art of 3D printers to take us boldly where nobody had been before. In a far far dimension!
Truth said the 3D print technology is far from perfect. At the moment still primitive, especially compared with how far the rest of the digital technology has gone the last decade and it is frustrating imagine how far you can go with it but still no able to reach it . Yet, the future is clear. We are heading to a 3D world. For the technology art lovers the discover opens frontiers of extreme opportunities even adding to the classics and their mystic a new dimension and a motivation for more people to see them and perhaps understand them.
Just imagine the difference it will make to architects, visual artists or sculptors. Their work always had been three dimensional, now it can actually take an active part of the creation. Always remember two things, 3D print is still in its early steps, in its very beginnings and that this is another tool and not the inspiration. Just like computers part of the motivation but never an inspiration.
The question that naturally follows is how the art mainstream will react to it. How the museums and galleries, the curators and the collectors will react to this new tool when at them moment they have been sceptics towards any forms of technology like computers and art software.
The primitive era of the 3D-printers is hostage yet not only to the 3D stuff they can print but also to how they are used. Tricky and – at least for me – it didn’t come as a surprise the use of the multidimensional printers to produce first a bicycle and then a …weapon; a pistol to be exact Actually the act of printing a pistol as one of the first outcomes of 3Drpinting was the great disappointment and the same time a verification of humanity’s endless stupidity.
Saying all that the experiments, especially the artistic experiments with the 3D printers have been absolutely impressive. Ioan Florea’s work is a breathtaking example and it combines all dimensional expressions, giving a very visual morph to the final installation.
But the most amazing use of the 3D printers it will come when art actually meet science. Anthropologists can use the printers with amazing results portraying in the most realistic way humans millennia dead. But imagine what will happen when the scientists manage to interfere with the genuine materials that morph a 3D print creation. They are already working into creating 3D print steaks.
It might sound like science fiction but as I said in the beginning, a primitive technology but with a long way to go. Imagine using live tissue to create organs and metal to create a vehicle and tools. I’m have the feeling that 3D printing is going to change the world around us especially in combination with the addition and evolution of artificial intelligence
First published: Universal Colours
The Ovi 