Uncategorized – Page 33 – ARST239 – Digital Sculpture 1: Fabrication

Jenna Marek – Polyhedron

Note: mine was cut upside down on the cardboard material for the laser cutter, so that is why the brown side is out instead of the white side!

Crista Esposito-first 3D print

Upon first impression, Nick Ervinck is a well-established Belgian artist who has a wide variety of sculptures on display in both public and private setting. The intricate shapes he creates give his pieces an artificial yet natural feel. The brightly colored pieces come in a variety of sizes and colors while seamlessly integrating into the locations in which they sit, despite sticking out like a sore thumb. Ervinck’s glossy sculptures are pleasing to the eye, with pieces having all levels of symmetry. Nick Ervinck has certainly found his niche using CAD to design rigid 3-dimensional shapes that have a fluid and dynamic character.

Objective Description

Objectively, Ervinck’s pieces are frequently found in public places and are formed to stand freely, sit on top or around buildings, or fit within pre-existing architecture. Many of these pieces, whether replacing a door or wall of a building or sitting on a building like a roof, are bright yellow and glossy. These chiral structures are filled with negative space, all the while being connected to the rest of the sculpture. Of his smaller works, Ervinck has made many busts of warriors, flowers, fictitious animals/bugs, and other head-like sculptures. These pieces sit in a vase or on a pedestal incorporating blue, grey, and yellow colors as he focuses on contrasting textures with rough honeycomb patterns next to glossy metallic finishes. Many of his pieces resemble that of a finished and glazed piece of ceramic.

Technical Decisions

Ervinck uses a mix of materials as he considers the region of space in which his art will sit. He uses digital software in order to iteratively create a piece with which he is satisfied. His craftsmanship with traditional materials works well in juxtaposition with his understanding of modern technology. He believes that 3D printing has endless applications. All the while, the pieces he creates focus on the transition from traditional to modern creation techniques in order to be able to print metals, polymers, ceramics, and incorporate them with traditional materials like wood, gauze, stone, polyester and more. Nick Ervinck’s ability to incorporate 3D printing with traditionally fired ceramics to create art inspired by natural events such as plants, blooming flowers and other organic structures gives him extensive flexibility in his artistic process. This allows him to give context to his pieces despite having the chiral/random structure described above.

The Work in the World

Nick Ervinck has drawn much of his inspiration along his artistic career from nature itself. Water, plants, motion and evolution are at the epicenter of his curiosity. Ervinck began creating on paper, t-shirts, prints, and eventually began setting up still cadres of sculptures, light boxes, and eventually graduated to large freestanding sculptures. Nick’s work serves as much a memoir his past but also humanity’s past as he recalls relevant mutations in the many themes of life. A few he explores are skin, marble, wind, line, rock, plant, water, light, motion, animal and human mutations. As his career progresses, his message makes itself clearer as he stresses the iterative effect of mutations as checkpoints along a journey. He currently works on blob mutations as well as archeological mutations as a means to reminisce the past as well as create an ideology of what the future could be.

The Story it Tells

The word mutation frequently draws negative connotations, yet it appears that Ervinck hopes to change the negative light. He focuses on these general themes that are pillars of life as we know it, and only exist as they do as a result of mutations. The work of Ervinck appears to change the perception of mutations to clarify the adaptive nature of nature and art as it should not only change perception and function, but also open a door for out of the box thinking. Take for example the door of the chapel shown below. The previous door may have been broken, possibly even functional, yet the change in appearance is unlike anything prior. The only way for evolution to occur in the first place is for a mutation to occur and offer and advantage. Through his creation of a unique brand of art that focuses on iteratively tweaking the space in which we walk in day in and day out, Ervinck strives to inspire others to go against the grain of mainstream culture. Only when there is a person who sticks out, will we (as a community) learn the benefit of having a mutation to progress society as we know it. We are all connected. Nick Ervinck is only 40 years old and has much more of a story to tell.

Artist report by Cooper Giesen

Ziheng Zeng —- Block Box

Richard Dupont – In Direction

Matt Kolonia

Digital Fabrication

Prof. Meiser

12/11/2021

Immediate Response:

Richard Dupont created a human figure using 3D technologies but chose to distort its features. Obviously, the first intriguing aspect of the piece of art is the distortion. It makes the observer feel uneasy and makes the piece feal fake. The next big feature is the nudity, which contributes to the sensation of unease for the observer. This piece personally reminds me of anxiety. I believe it is representative of the uneasy feeling of anxiety and how vulnerable a person can feel. The water-like ripples on the body can represent the feeling of unrest that a person may feel on a boat.

Objective Description:

This piece of art is a representation of a human figure, but the body is not like the bodies we are used to seeing. This body is distorted in a ripple effect and provides a feeling of unease to the observer. The figure is a naked male, standing upright, and seems to be walking slowly forward. The man is white, bald, seems to be of average height, and lacks fine details.

Technical Decisions:

The piece of art was constructed using artistic technologies such as CAD and 3D scanning. It was then hand crafted with hours of sanding and manual labor. The choice of combining both technology and handwork into the piece shows that Dupont wanted to represent the affects of technology and our bodies in his art. The distortion of the body may represent an out of body experience, like that when people use technology in our current world. The walking aspect is a human feature, but this figure is clearly not entirely human. This may represent our abilities to live our lives both physically and through a virtual world.

The Work in the World:

With the two connections between people and technology and people and anxiety I believe this contributes to the evolution of humans through time. We have allowed ourselves to wither away throughout the years by using technology as a crutch. The rapid increase in depression, anxiety, and other mental problems could be stimming from our lack of living in the moment, in the real world.

The Story it Tells:

This piece of art has a few different meanings, but I believe the biggest part is its representation of the human psyche. It shows the struggle of man and the inability for a person to shake the feeling of fear, guilt, loneliness, and helplessness. There is a version like this man inside all of us that we keep hidden from the world. Our anxiety can control us and make us feel scared, but we struggle so much to let others help us and see what is underneath. I believe Dupont wants us to be aware of our direction as a human race if we do not help each other heal and grow. He wants us to live in the moment and appreciate what and who is around us in the real world. As this man walks forward, his body and mind degrade, hence the name of the piece, one direction.