A haunting exhibit using the Latin alphabet, whose decedent I use now to write this article, acts as inspiration and installation for Anna Nazo’s 3D printed design in the drawing for artist of the year at this year’s London 3D Printshow. Constructed with 3D studio Max 2010, Adobe Soundbooth CS5, Z Brush, professional software for preparing the 3D models, the designs came to printed fruition with a ProJet 660 Pro 3D printer. The design was not simply transferred from a computer design to an object from filament. A laborious and intricate process combining facets of language and history and culture culminated in the piece known as The Garden EPLVLEREPRAETERITORVM, otherwise known as from the dust of the past in modern English.
The process alone exalts Nazo’s artistic cultivation of what we understand as “data” or “technology” both old and new. In order to better understand the significance and theme of Nazo’s work, it would behoove the viewer to understand language and a construction by humans. Language in terms of an alphabet, the written word, is similar to the process of coding and using the code to form abstract and concrete forms. 3DP acts in the same way with its software and print process, although as such technology becomes increasingly global, the “language” becomes more universal than any an alphabet could achieve.
Besides delving into tradition with an extinct language, Nazo applied sound to the objects’ form. Initially, she used 3D studio Max to create the 3D letters based on those found on the Trajan Column, a large Roman column honoring the emperor Trajan. Using Adobe Soundbooth, Nazo had an individual who specializes in ancient languages record pronunciation of the alphabet with 23 letters from A.D. 113. Using data from the coordinates of the dots in the sound waves to distort the 3D models of the letters in 3D Studio Max, Nazo developed a unique distortion. For maximum effect, Nazo impressed the same process across the x, y, and z axis. With Z Brush, the models were cleaned and prepped for a powder print with the ProJet 660 Pro 3D printer.
The distortion makes the letters appear ethereal as if adrift in the haze of time and memory. Once known and used symbols become distorted and transmuted by the very use of them for their intended purpose. Yet the objects could only be made with modern technology. The Garden EPLVLEREPRAETERITORVM looks like an exhumed language, what happens when we try to revive what passed away or hold on to something lingering from a storied past. The Garden of dust of the past formed in the powder of today.
