3DP Applications

We the Builders Rebuild George Washington

We the People of the Maker-verse, in Order to form a more perfect replica of a copy of a statue in the style of Giuseppe Ceracchi‘s odd neoclassical “Bust of George Washington” (1791-1792), establish a Practice of Full 1:1 Scale Community Appropriation of Public Artworks, insure Art Curation/Museum critical controversy and policy discord, provide a new means of enjoying humanity’s shared cultural capital, promote the general practice of Making and Personal Manufacture, and secure the Blessings of the Interwebbies to this Baltimore icon and other oft-neglected sculptural works of art in Perpetuity throughout the Universe known and unknown, do ordain and establish this Art Project for the People of the Internet and Land Territories.

Those words, so epic and so ridiculous, perfectly capture the spirit of the “We the Builders” project, which, as the above preamble states, seeks to create a 3D printed 1:1 scale replica of Giuseppe Ceracchi’s “Bust of George Washington.” Both an interrogation of what constitutes a public good and an experiment in crowdsourcing, We the Builders takes a public monument and makes it even more public by soliciting the help of Makers the world over to perform the duplication, and, hopefully, just in time for the 3D PrintShow in New York.

george washington 3D Printing

The team behind We the Builders, which includes Makers Todd Blatt and Marty McGuire (of Creating with Code), started by enlisting the help of Baltimore scanning company Direct Dimension. With Direct Dimension’s complete scan of the sculpture, they were ready to go.  Only, because the exact replication of the statute would be time-consuming on a single printer, We the Builders turned to the collective. The bust was broken up into 120 pieces, ready to be divvied up between anyone willing to print using their 3D printer. Participants are free to use whatever colour that they wish. They can even inscribe their names or initials onto their 3D printed block, so long as that inscription is located on a non-visible portion of the object. After We the Builders has collected all 120 pieces, it will be glued together and displayed next to the original.

Tinkerine 3D Printer 3D Printing
Friends of Todd Blatt’s Bmore3D, Tinkerine Studios, have already printed one section of hair that will be going into the statue.

The project was first launched at the ArtBytes Hackathon the Walters Art Museum from Jan 24-26. Since then — at the time of this writing — it looks as though the project has received over half of the necessary volunteers who have printed about one third of the blocks needed to complete the puzzle. They have just two weeks left to finish the bust if they want to take it to 3D PrintShow in New York. If you want to be one of the founding fathers/mothers/sisters/brothers of this project, find their website here.

Source: We the Builders