As a person who knew about 3D printing recently by taking this course, ART 3041, my first reaction was not just surprised and excited. It may be reflected by my pessimistic perspective, still, my first word to say about 3D printing was, “That’s it?” The book, ‘Fabricated’ by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman, started with the exciting future imagination with 3D printing world. It sounds quite interesting giving me the expectation of 3D printing development such as printing a house. But, as the book explains the process of 3D printing more and more, I thought more of its complication. In fact, printing the actual object from 3D printer takes a long time and without human effort, you simply cannot print any. I feel more like all systems use different languages while they are communicating with each other. There seems more limitations than possibilities and technology is not as fast as what I thought of. In addition, I was so shocked when the authors talked about printing weapons and bioprinting ‘living ink.’ I doubted how safe 3D printing will be in the future.

Leaving the dark side of 3D printing behind, I tried to focus on its ‘hope’ in our future. These days, various industries started to absorb 3D printing in their worlds. One of the interesting industries to me is fashion industry. It’s because I am waiting for the future that I can print out my design of cloth in my room right away. I agree that it is a completely new idea that designers make the clothes by 3D printer, yet it must be impractical for common people to wear, I thought. Especially, I am the person who has sensitive skin so that I cannot wear somewhat rough or metallic. So, I first imagined clothes by 3D printer with plastic filament and it would be so uncomfortable and rough. It was my first question about fashion industry, what kinds of material they use to print. The amazing thing is that designers used wearable thermoplastic materials to make clothes. Even though they are still working with cotton fabric to print out, it seems well-developed.

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/10/31/3d-printed-textiles-bradley-rothenberg/

Then, there should be a new 3D printer which can print out only for the clothes. My second question was whether there is a printer like this right now or not. I found the recent article which introduces a new 3D printer as same as what I expected.

http://3dprinting.com/news/3d-printer-can-print-clothes/

3D printed clothes were already introduced in the famous fashion shows since last year. It got a great attention to the fashion industry. At the beginning, they were just artistic and half naked clothes, but practical and realistic clothes keep showing up at the fashion shows. Once the printable cotton fabric comes out, I strongly believe that the fashion industry will have a new boom of era with 3D printing technology.

http://www.businessinsider.com/3d-printed-fashion-2014-8?op=1

Yet, it is hard to print one cloth out as a whole. We need to print out partial clothes and assemble them by hands. Also, we need a lot of human power to complete one partial cloth such as brushing the sand or dying with color.

http://www.materialise.com/cases/iris-van-herpen-debuts-wearable-3d-printed-pieces-at-paris-fashion-week

There is a website which introduces 3D printing show. It’s good to follow the newest technology through this website.

http://3dprintshow.com/home-2014/

I hope all fashion companies invest their money to develop 3D printing technology and soon not only they sell these products, but also customers simply make and order their custom clothes through these companies. Of course, moreover, I am expecting to see my future room with the 3D clothing printer which can make any design of my clothes in a minute.

NYC

Makers

The MAD Biennial

It’s time to forget about everything and be immersed in thought. Being excited to feel art, I was making light and happy steps toward the museum. The museum, MAD, is somewhat smaller than I thought and didn’t give me any impression like MoMA or Whitney museum. Disappointed, first. I got on the elevator to feel NYC makers exhibition. Sorry for saying to the artist who made ‘Moonlight’ inside of the elevator, but my first thought to see this artwork inside of the elevator was ‘blank.’ It was, or at least looked like, made of basic white or beige curtain with the dim light shooting on and quiet music coming out, but nothing special. I thought there’s something behind and it’s definitely not an art work. I might lack of understanding the intension of the artist or something else. All my naïve or selfish thought left behind, let me get to talk about the main artworks.

On fifth floor, I first stared at three objects on the wall from far away. They were smooth and colorful chunks. Three different colors, pink, purple, and blue, were pretty, so I decided to get close to them. Still, I couldn’t understand what they were, so I opened the brochure. They were ‘Facial Weaponization Suite; Fog Face Mask’ by Zach Blas. He devised these in response to the development of biometric facial recognition software and used plastic, painted, and vacuum formed. After getting the knowledge, the three masks looked all different. It was quite fun to find the fact that these all had different characteristics such as nose and entire face shapes. They must be European white males, I thought.

Next to the masks, there was ‘Let There Be Neon 3D Chair.’ There was no description or artist’s name on it. By the title of the art work, I guessed that we now can make neon stuffs with 3D printing. Impressive. They have a website which is www.lettherebeneon.com.

Coming down to the fourth floor, one small hologram got attracted my attention. It was ‘Warholes’ by Jason Sapan. It showed different holograms in different angles. They also have their own website, www.holographer.com. I wondered how hologram works and the website briefly explains about the hologram and even they have lessons to learn if you want. It was amazing to see how the hologram changes on the flat screen and shows different images.

http://youtu.be/VU5doa0yNK4 (This is the link for the video that I recorded.)

While I was looking around, I could hear the sound of music and I followed what it was. There was a video playing in the middle of the fourth floor and it showed someone familiar with. Yoko Ono plastic Ono band made the first single album, ‘Bad Dancer.’ I didn’t need to talk about whether it is artistic or not. It made me stand up in front of the video for a while and watched it without any thinking. Knowing that she is pretty old already, I thought she could dance pretty well. The movement of the people in the video was free. They looked like they didn’t care about what other people might think. Be active and optimistic. I learned. One more thing that I liked to add was that I could listen to the music well only in the narrow area below the speaker. Interesting.

The last artwork I like to talk about is ‘And I Can’t Run’ by a designer, Hank Willis Thomas, and printers, Erik Hougen and Keigo Takahashi. I like pictures to see, but, above all, it kept getting attention to everyone. I was curious why. It was the only one that you could take a picture with your flash light. I doubted the written instruction at first but stunned. It’s printed in white ink on white retro-reflective vinyl and mounted on aluminum, the brochure said. I could see the hidden images when I took a picture with flash light. Very interesting technique.

The lessons that I learned by visiting the museum are, first, being creative is not somewhat incredibly special. Be honest, some of the artworks were not that impressive. I felt that I could make it if I want to. Nevertheless, the most important fact is that creativity is not coming out from only the genius artists. As same as what the professors said in 3D printing class, we all can be creative. So, I learned not to think hard when I make something creatively.

Second thing that I learned is that I should think more outside of the box. It’s hard to read the intention of the artists because I got used to see and think something as it is. Just a little bit of thinking outside of the box makes a lot different.

Third thing that I learned is that live life happily with full of energy. After I watched the video by Yoko Ono plastic Ono band, I seriously think about me and my life. Being positive, energetic, and active makes my life better at any moment and even inspire other people. So, live my life happily ever.

The overall experience in the museum refreshed my mind. Believe or not, I feel I became more artistic and creative.

  The actual ring object was printed out like this.

The missing details gave me a disappointment, but it came out pretty well.

My first creation by Sketchup was a block.

It was my first time to use Sketchup, but it was quite easy to make.

It gave me an interest in designing things.

The second one was creating one multiple-block by using other people’s blocks.

I didn’t plan or think what to create.

So, I naturally put blocks here and there and then find the figure of the creature.

I call it a Brave Dog Statue.

It was little hard to rotate and put the blocks on where I wanted.

But, it was great to learn.