Stratasys has put together its first art gallery for attendees of Euromold, which happens next week for four consecutive days starting November 25th. In order to celebrate the 3D printed art that will fill the gallery, Stratasys collaborated with award-winning designer Nick Ervinck, to produce five novel artworks for the company’s ‘The Sixth Element’ collection. The 3D printed art is inspired by five elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Life, with the sixth element unveiling the “natural beauty of 3D printing.”
Forming the first part of Stratasys’ collection, Ervinck’s sculptures portray “the motions of nature’s elements through complex intricacies and transparencies made possible with Stratasys’ unique Objet Connex3 color multi-material 3D printing technology.” The sculptures are named GNILICER (LIGHT), BRETOMER (WIND), MYRSTAW (WATER), NOITENA and NOITULS (MOVEMENT). The purpose of this artistic endeavor is to explore the forms and shapes of a wide array of potential gestures available, as humans and machines explore the boundaries of the natural and virtual worlds. Attempting to capture these elements in motion to serve them up as tangible and stationary objects by washing them with their own physical data, Ervinck’s inspiration comes from light, wind and water, and how reflection, color and movement could produce artworks that suggest the escape of physical boundaries.
Ervinck had this to say about Stratasys’ Objet Connex3 color multi-material 3D Production System: “My work has always been a hybrid between the virtual and physical world and a 3D printer is one of the few tools, if not the only one, that can efficiently mediate between the two. With the level of accuracy achievable with this technology, it is now possible to compose complex structures and designs that were unthinkable before in contemporary sculpture, pushing the limits of what is realistic to create.”
With both of these pieces, Ervinck is attempting to explore his own perceptions when they are fixed on mass itself. He replaced the hard materials associated with traditional sculpting with a combination of rigid opaque and translucent color digital materials 3D printed on Stratasys’ unique Objet500 Connex3.
Inspired by bizarre physical movements and optical illusions, these sculptures can be interpreted in multiple ways and angles, creating escape maneuvers away from a space confined by its own dimensions. These complex pieces could not be sculpted by hand. By adding Stratasys’ triple-jetting technology to his arsenal, Ervinck used VeroClear, VeroCyan and VeroMagenta to create multifaceted shapes and opacities in a single print job.
Ervinck elaborated, saying: “The level of realism achievable using the Objet500 Connex3 is unsurpassed, as it is the only 3D Production System that enables me to combine colors, transparency and multiple materials at the same time to create organic, geometrical, fluid and large scale sculptures. I now see 3D printing as a tool to use in creating my work just as a painter considers his brush a tool; it is that integrated into my design process.”
Naomi Kaempfer, Stratasys’ Creative Director Art Fashion Design chimed in to the same effect, saying: “When we approached Nick, one of the tougher challenges we had for him was to embody the motion blur language of his Lightbox series into a 3D form. This adventure led us all to the birth of MYRSTAW, NOITULS and NOITENA, which perfectly encapsulate Nick’s artistic style. We can perhaps read in them a balancing dialogue between sci-fi and the imminent organic language of animal bone structure – something that we are very proud to bring to life using 3D printing.”
Perhaps we can, Naomi, but I don’t think a machine has written any science fiction or printed a live animal, but maybe someday, a human-powered machine will do both at the same time. And maybe you’ll also be able to use this animal sci-fi console as an edible Virtual Reality console. Just maybe.
Ervinck’s pieces are to be unveiled as part of Stratasys’ ‘The Sixth Element’ collection at EuroMold, 25-28 November, Frankfurt, Germany – Hall 11 Booth FN01.
