Arthur Clement and Guillaume Kuntz, designers at Ao Gitsune, have been exploring the concept of what they term ‘modern vanity.’ They have been experimenting with electromagnetic levitation and have 3D printed some eye-catching and captivating results in the form a golden floating skull: “Levitation is one of the first absolute laws on earth, so powerful that it affects everything. It is very similar to passing time. We decided to use gravity as a metaphor for time. Being able to break away from the attraction is a subtle yet strong metaphor to show the ‘infinite’ power of human imagination against the relentless force of time. The little idea made its way, step by step – a challenge as magnetic levitation won’t allow design errors – gathering knowledge, skills and a lot of time…” Kuntz explained to Sculpteo, the 3D printing service bureau who produced their abstract artwork.
Time. It’s a funny old thing. Hero of physics Stephen Hawkins postulated three versions of the quirky phenomena: Psychological time – as perceived by living entities; cosmological time – the passage of the expansion and contraction of the universe from big bang to big crunch; and entropic time – the innate inevitable journey of the contents of the universe from order to disorder. Yes, it’s philosophical article time. Or, it is that time as I write this, and will be at the time you may choose to read it… Even then, we may be time zones apart as author and reader. It may have crossed your mind that time cannot be ‘a funny old thing’ either, if we ride the paradigm that there are three versions of it. After all, conscious living entities have been around on Earth but a minutiae of time compared with the span of cosmological time according to modern physics. So human time is young indeed relative to the age of cosmological time: Isn’t that funny?
The concept of time has cropped up before in the world of 3D printing, that is most certain: From the fine art installation of ”Colocation, Time Displacement” by artist Yuri Pattision, who created an exhibit featuring 3D printed replicas of meteorites and a mini movie of a time traveller from the future talking to someone from the present (psychological, cosmological and entropic time we’d perhaps be referring to here), to the more practical and everyday, like the funky and fun Shapeways 3D Animation to 3D Print Competition now entering it’s final week. But there are more than a few fascinating features for the floating skull by Clement and Kuntz. Personally I particularly like the conceptual self-actualisation in this artwork: The piece required taking the time to gather the knowledge and skills to produce a piece about how time acts upon the human condition of gathering knowledge and skills. You will likely have your own take on it… what do you think?
As for the 3D printing on show here, this new school too cool gold skull used Sculpteo’s polyamide material given the base requirement for a lightweight material for the levitation aspect of the piece: weighing only 0.9g / cm3. Using an EOS Formiga printer (Sculpteo runs a range of P100, P110, P395, P730 machines) the 3D printing bureau facilitated precision production for Ao Gitsune: at a detail level of only 100 µm. The gold coloured floating skull was the first of a series that the design company has begun producing, with additive manufacturing playing a key role in their production. The lightweight benefits of making via adding are certainly on display in a very tangible way here!
Theres no way that skull is balancing without “rolling out” of the magnetic flux. Nice try