As we continue to lack a decent search engine on this blog and as we don't use a "tag cloud" ... This post could help navigate through the updated content on | rblg (as of 09.2023), via all its tags!
FIND BELOW ALL THE TAGS THAT CAN BE USED TO NAVIGATE IN THE CONTENTS OF | RBLG BLOG:
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Note that we had to hit the "pause" button on our reblogging activities a while ago (mainly because we ran out of time, but also because we received complaints from a major image stock company about some images that were displayed on | rblg, an activity that we felt was still "fair use" - we've never made any money or advertised on this site).
Nevertheless, we continue to publish from time to time information on the activities of fabric | ch, or content directly related to its work (documentation).
The exhibition related to the project and European research Beyond Matter - Past Exhibitions as Digital Experiences will open next week at ZKM, with the digital versions (or should I rather say "versioning"?) of two past and renowned exhibitions: Iconoclash, at ZKM in 2002 (with Bruno Latour among the multiple curators) and Les Immateriaux, at Beaubourg in 1985 (in this case with Jean-François Lyotard, not so long after the release of his Postmodern Condition). An unusual combination from two different times and perspectives.
The title of the exhibition will be Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter, with an amazing contemporary and historic lineup of works and artists, as well as documentation material from both past shows.
Working with digitized variants of iconic artworks from these past exhibitions (digitization work under the supervision of Matthias Heckel), fabric | ch has been invited by Livia Nolasco-Roszas, ZKM curator and head of the research, to present its own digital take in the form of a combination on these two historic shows, and by using the digital models produced by their research team and made available.
The result, a new fabric | ch project entitled Atomized (re-)Staging, will be presented at the ZKM in Karlsruhe from this Saturday on (03.12.2022 - 23.04.2023).
When past exhibitions come to life digitally, the past becomes a virtual experience. What this novel experience can look like in concrete terms is shown by the exhibition »Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter«.
As part of the project »Beyond Matter. Cultural Heritage on the Verge of Virtual Reality«, the ZKM | Karlsruhe and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, use the case studies »Les Immatériaux« (Centre Pompidou, 1985) and »Iconoclash« (ZKM | Karlsruhe, 2002) to investigate the possibility of reviving exhibitions through experiential methods of digital and spatial modeling.
The digital model as an interactive presentation of exhibition concepts is a novel approach to exploring exhibition history, curatorial methods, and representation and mediation. The goal is not to create »digital twins«, that is, virtual copies of past assemblages of artifacts and their surrounding architecture, but to provide an independent sensory experience.
On view will be digital models of past exhibitions, artworks and artifacts from those exhibitions, and accompanying contemporary commentary integrated via augmented reality. The exhibition will be accompanied by a conference on virtualizing exhibition histories.
The exhibition will be accompanied by numerous events, such as specialist workshops, webinars, online and offline guided tours, and a conference.
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Program
7 – 7:30 p.m. Media Theater
Short lectures by Sybille Krämer, Professor (emer.) at the Free University of Berlin Siegfried Zielinski, media theorist with a focus on archaeology and variantology of arts and media, curator, author
7:30 – 8:15 p.m. Media Theater
Welcome Olga Sismanidi, Representative Creative Europe Program of the European Commission (EACEA) Arne Braun, State Secretary in the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg Frank Mentrup, Lord Mayor of the City of Karlsruhe Peter Weibel, Director of the ZKM | Karlsruhe Xavier Rey, Director of the Centre Pompidou, Paris
8:15 – 8:30 p.m. Improvisation on the piano
Hymn Controversy by Bardo Henning
8:30 p.m. Curator guided tour of the exhibition
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The exhibition will be open from 8 to 10 p.m.
The mint Café is also looking forward to your visit.
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Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.
Past Exhibitions as Digital Experiences.
Sat, December 03, 2022 – Sun, April 23, 2023
The EU project »Beyond Matter: Cultural Heritage on the Verge of Virtual Reality« researches ways to reexperience past exhibitions using digital and spatial modeling methods. The exhibition »Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.« presents the current state of the research project at ZKM | Karlsruhe.
At the core of the event is the digital revival of the iconic exhibitions »Les Immatériaux« of the Centre Pompidou Paris in 1985 and »Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art« of the ZKM | Karlsruhe in 2002.
Based on the case studies of »Les Immatériaux« (Centre Pompidou, 1985) and »Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art« (ZKM, 2002), ZKM | Karlsruhe and the Centre Pompidou Paris investigate possibilities of reviving exhibitions through experiential methods of digital and spatial modeling. Central to this is also the question of the particular materiality of the digital.
At the heart of the Paris exhibition »Les Immatériaux« in the mid-1980s was the question of what impact new technologies and materials could have on artistic practice. When philosopher Jean-François Lyotard joined as cocurator, the project's focus eventually shifted to exploring the changes in the postmodern world that were driven by a flood of new technologies.
The exhibition »Iconoclash« at ZKM | Karlsruhe focused on the theme of representation and its multiple forms of expression, as well as the social turbulence it generates. As emphasized by curators Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, the exhibition was not intended to be iconoclastic in its approach, but rather to present a synopsis of scholarly exhibits, documents, and artworks about iconoclasms – a thought experiment that took the form of an exhibition – a so-called »thought exhibition.«
»Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.« now presents in the 21st century the digital models of the two projects on the Immaterial Display, hardware that has been specially developed for exploring virtual exhibitions. On view are artworks and artifacts from the past exhibitions, as well as contemporary reflections and artworks created or expanded for this exhibition. These include works by Jeremy Bailey, damjanski, fabric|ch, Geraldine Juárez, Carolyn Kirschner, and Anne Le Troter that echo the 3D models of the two landmark exhibitions. They bear witness to the current digitization trend in the production, collection, and presentation of art.
Case studies and examples of the application of digital curatorial reconstruction techniques that were created as part of the Beyond Matter project complement the presentation.
The exhibition »Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.« is accompanied by an extensive program of events: A webinar series aimed at museum professionals and cultural practitioners will present examples of work in digital or hybrid museums; two workshops, coorganized with Andreas Broeckmann from Leuphana University Lüneburg, will focus on interdisciplinary curating and methods for researching historical exhibitions; workshops on »Performance-Oriented Design Methods for Audience Studies and Exhibition Evaluation« (PORe) will be held by Lily Díaz-Kommonen and Cvijeta Miljak from Aalto University.
After the exhibition ends at the ZKM, a new edition of »Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter.« will be on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris from May to July 2023.
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Artists
Josef Albers, Giovanni Anselmo, Arman, Art & Language, Jeremy Bailey, Fiona Banner, DiMoDa featuring Banz & Bowinkel, Christiane Paul, Tamiko Thiel, Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, Samuel Bianchini, Bio Design Lab (HfG Karlsruhe), Jean-Louis Boissier & Liliane Terrier, John Cage, Jacques-Élie Chabert & Camille Philibert, damjanski, Annet Dekker & Marialaura Ghidini & Gaia Tedone, Marcel Duchamp, fabric | ch, Eric J. Heller, Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Hemken (Art Studies Kunsthochschule Kassel / University of Kassel), Joasia Krysa, Leonardo Impett, Eva Cetinić, MetaObjects, Sui, Michel Jaffrennou, Geraldine Juárez, Martin Kippenberger, Carolyn Kirschner, Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki, Joseph Kosuth, Denis Laborde, Mark Lewis & Laura Mulvey, Kasimir Malevich, Pietro Manzoni, Gordon Matta-Clark, Peo Olsson, Katarina Sjögren, Jonas Williamsson, Roman Opalka, Nam June Paik, Readymades belong to everyone®, Jeffrey Shaw, Annegret Soltau, Daniel Soutif & Paule Zajderman, Klaus Staeck, Anne Le Troter, Manfred Wolff-Plottegg, Erwin Wurm
Curatorial team Felix Koberstein (ZKM) Moritz Konrad (ZKM)
Marcella Lista (Centre Pompidou, Paris)
Philippe Bettinelli (Centre Pompidou, Paris)
Julie Champion (Centre Pompidou, Paris)
Initiated by the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in collaboration with the Aalto University, Espoo, the Tallinn Art Hall, and the Tirana Art Lab.
We can certainly discuss the quality of the movie indeed, or rather its necessity compared to the original japan anime (a funny remark about it though: if you have the questionable chance to be "reborned" or "ghosted" like the major in the remade movie, you'll transform from asian to caucasian white ... Which is the same fate as the movie in fact, if you have the chance to be "redone", you'll go from japan anime to Hollywood pimped movie...), but we can all agree about the quality of the environment and character design nonetheless. Even if conceptually, this future looks a lot like an "hyper-present" (more networks, more media, more digital, more robots, cyborgs and viruses, more hackers, etc. - that will not happen therefore).
In particular for architects, the urban design of the "Hong Kong++" (or "Blade Runner++" ) style city, full of skyscrapers sized holograms, mostly publicities. A design in a kind of strange and brutal mish-mash with more regular yet buildings. This is the quite 3d graphical work ofAsh Thorp that i link below.
Considering these different exemples, we could wonder why architectural schools don't takemore into consideration these kind of works? So as the ones present in literature. Couldn't we start thinking that architecture is a field that indeed and of course, build physical spaces and cities, but not only.
So, it should also take its part in the conceptualization and design of "networked", "virtual" or rather "mixed realities" (whatever further necessary debates we could have about the understanding of those words), environments for games and movies? Possibly also by extension non material spaces in general? And of course, all the probably more interesting "in betweens"? I truly believe architectural discourse could easily consider all these aspects of architecture and widen a bit its educational scope.
But I don't see this coming so much. Do you? (there are some discussion forums on Archinect for example)
Note: in direct link with the previous post about vr, this interesting evening discussion next April at the Bartlett School of Architecture about the relation between architecture and videogames (by extension, the architecture of videogames? and/or the architecture in videogames?
Or If we go for older references in our own work, this reminds me of projects in which we explored this relation between architecture and artificial environments of games or interactive 3d spaces, like for exemple the MIX-m project (2005) or even La_Fabrique (1999 (!))... Hum.
REALMS is an evening discussion on the relationship between video games and architecture held at the Bartlett School of Architecture as part of the London Games Festival 2017. As games become ever more complex and immersive, and architects increasingly adopt game technologies for visualizing and exploring their design ideas, Realms asks what the shared future of the two mediums may be. Might architects turn towards realizing ideas in virtual realms in the face of financial pressures, and what can we learn from the weird and wonderful spatial experiences that games can offer us?
REALMS is an evening of informal talks from architects, writers and game developers followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A. It will provide a platform for the free discussion of how architecture and video games may develop together both technologically and culturally. As part of Realms we will also showcase architecture student work from the Bartlett that deals with the relationship between architecture and video game space.
The panel of speakers for REALMS is:
Darran Anderson - author of Imaginary Cities, and writer for Killscreen/Versions. @oniropolis
James Delaney - founder of Blockworks, one of the world's leading Minecraft builders. @BlockWorksYT
Catrina Stewart - architect and founder of Office S&M and architectural designer on BAFTA award winning Lumino City. @CatrinaLStewart
Maciek Strychalski - game developer and founder of SMAC Games releasing the upcoming Tokyo 42. @Tokyo42Game
Philippa Warr - writer and author, currently working at Rock Paper Shotgun. @philippawarr
Entry is free on a first come first seated basis.
Address: Room G.12, Bartlett School of Architecture, 22 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0QB.
Refreshments will be provided.
Realms is supported by the Architecture Projects Fund of the Bartlett, UCL.
Note: Obviously, it was just a matter of time before something like this (virtual virtual reality) happened! "Virtual reality" is part of "reality" isn't it? So why not represent it as well, as part of vr... Etc.
Which brings us to the 20 years old question: when will we start trigger new experiences with VR that are not necessarily linked to some kind of representation, even if this representation is an "hallucination", or some sort of surrealistic visual narrative as stated here?
But this question addresses the paradoxal limitations or presuppositions of the media itself, so to say. It seems to open doors to alternate realities, but at the same time, it is entirely based on perspective, human vision and sound perception. It is in fact quite limitative and hard to overcome, but nonetheless dimensions of human perception that have been challenged for a long time by artistic practices of different sorts.
"A game about VR, AI and our collective sci-fi hallucinations."
"In the near future, most jobs have been automated. What is the purpose of humanity? Activitude, the Virtual Labor System, is here to help. Your artisanal human companionship is still highly sought by our A.I. clients. Strap on your headset. Find your calling.
Pssst. . . Sure, you could function like a therapy dog to an A.I. in Bismarck and watch your work ratings climb, but don’t you yearn for something more: adventure, conflict, purpose? Escape backstage into Activitude’s system by putting on an endless series of VR headsets in VR. Outrun Chaz, your manager, as he attempts to boot you out PERMANENTLY. Along the way, uncover the story of Activitude’s evolution from VR start-up to the “human purpose aggregator” it is today."
"Throughout my journey as an author, journalist, curator and member of collectives, meeting artists has always been a chance for me to develop my knowledge and theory around speculative fields that go well beyond the fixed borders of academic reflection.
As such, while curating exhibitions, art directing festivals, coordinating residencies and directing productions, I have always sought out a relationship between art practice and theory that, rather than merely being mutually beneficial, leads to a true exchange. I have always felt more enriched working with the artists, rather than simply writing about them. For me, an exhibition is not a final goal but a platform where each player enriches their sensory knowledge and collectively participates in opening up new ways of perceiving and acting in society, faced with our accelerated world. These are the mutual cosmic exchanges that give artworks their “value”… and can help us to rethink our politics of recombinatory commons.
So I took the opportunity of this online curation to revisit a decade of collaborating with artists and to see where this new perspective on mutual exchange (with the gallery, the collector) can lead us. During these years, Slovenian artistic life has been a major source of inspiration for me, and this is expressed in the selection, which is faithful to the community spirit. (...)"
Created at the occasion of an exhibition in Montreal and revisited for this edition of 20 copies, Interference Dimensionnelle 1 is as a “matrix” in scale 1: X which instantly combines the spatial, temporal or even climatic dimensions/data of actual or virtual terrestrial locations.
Athens, Brasilia, Dubai, intersection of the Arctic Circle and Antemeridian, Montreal: 37 ° 58 ‘N / 23 ° 43’ E; 15 ° 46 ‘N / 47 ° 54’ W; 25 ° 16 ‘N / 55 ° 19’ E; 66 ° 33 ‘N / 180 ° 00’ E; 45 ° 30 ‘N / 73 ° 40’ W.
Five emblematic places representative of the architectural, territorial and energetic approaches of Western society and its history, five coordinates located on a world map and then gathered. These situations, when supplemented by the”original” mark 0,0,0, form a set of six interlaced benchmarks for new contemporary spatial situations.
21 x 18 x 18 cm, transparent and black acrylic polymer, edition of 20. €1200.-
Three cofounders of Voxel8, a Harvard spinoff, are showing me a toy they’ve made. At the company’s lab space—a couple of cluttered work benches in a big warehouse it shares with other startups—a bright-orange quadcopter takes flight and hovers above tangles of wires, computer equipment, coffee mugs, and spare parts.
Voxel8 isn’t trying to get into the toy business. The hand-sized drone serves to show off the capabilities of the company’s new 3-D printing technology. Voxel8 has developed a machine that can print both highly conductive inks for circuits along with plastic. This makes it possible to do away with conventional circuit boards, the size and shape of which constrain designs and add extra bulk to devices.
Conductive ink is just one of many new materials Voxel8 is planning to use to transform 3-D printing.
The new ink is not only highly conductive and printable at room temperature; it also stays where it’s put. Voxel8 uses the ink to connect conventional components—like computer chips and motors—and to fabricate some electronic components, such as antennas.
The company made the quadcopter by printing its plastic body layer by layer, periodically switching to printing conductive lines that became embedded by successive layers of plastic. At the appropriate points in the process, the Voxel8 team would stop, manually add a component, such as an LED, and then start the printer again.
The toy looks like something that could be made with conventional techniques. The real goal is to work with customers to discover new applications that can only be produced via 3-D printing. A video the company made to show off its technology starts by asking: “What would you do if you could 3-D print electronics?” While the founders have some ideas, they really don’t know what the technology is going to be particularly useful for.
Voxel8’s business plan is to start by selling the conductive ink and a desktop 3-D printer. The machine is designed primarily to produce prototypes, not to manufacture large quantities of finished product. The company’s long-term goal, however, is to create industrial manufacturing equipment that can print large numbers of specialized materials simultaneously, which will enable new kinds of devices.
The founders will draw on a large collection of novel materials—and strategies for designing new ones—developed over the last decade by cofounder Jennifer Lewis, a professor of biologically inspired engineering at Harvard (see “Microscale 3-D Printing).
One of Lewis’s key insights has been how to design materials that flow under pressure—such as in a printer-head nozzle—but immediately solidify when the pressure is removed. This is done by engineering microscopic particles to spontaneously form networks that hold the material in place. Those particles can be made of various materials: strong structural ones that can survive high temperatures, as well as epoxies, ceramics, and materials for resistors, capacitors, batteries, motors, and electromagnets, among many other things (see “Printing Batteries”).
“The long-term possibility is almost endless numbers of materials being coprinted together with superfine resolution,” says cofounder and hardware lead Michael Bell. “That’s far more interesting than printing a single material.”
Jean-Luc Godard messes with 3D to wonderful results.
You’re probably at least a bit of a film nerd if you’re familiar with Jean-Luc Godard, the biggest name of the ’60s French New Wave movement. Even if you don’t know him, you've definitely seen a lot of film techniques that he pioneered. He's credited with turning the jump cut from an editing accident into a legitimate tool. And you know Wes Anderson's playful use of on-screen text and standout bright colors? Godard was doing that 30 years earlier. He’s been incredibly influential when it comes to what modern films look like, so when he decides to play with something new, it's worth paying close attention.
The movie is obtuse. Its techniques are anything but.
Godard's latest picture, Goodbye to Language, is his first feature shot in 3D. It's an impressionistic film about an affair, and for Godard it's as unapproachable as ever, with little semblance of narrative, strange interactions, and characters that basically just make heady declarative statements like, "A woman can do no harm. She can annoy. She can kill. No more." But whether you're interested in his avant-garde musings or not, there's one big reason to see this film: it may be the first one that really uses 3D to do something new.
A lot of great directors have tried their hand at 3D, including Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese. Notably, Werner Herzog earned plenty of accolade for his use of 3D to portray cave paintings. For the most part, though, 3D films haven't done much more than look like a cinematic pop-up book — a poor excuse to ask for 10 more dollars at the box office. It's fortunate then that Godard has tried his hand at one and come up with some truly interesting uses for it. Here are three big ways that Godard makes it work.
He actually makes 3D look good
Most 3D films either look almost indistinguishable from 2D, or they don't do much more than apply a basic layering effect between the foreground and the background. Godard, on the other hand, manages to film the world in 3D very much as we see it, using a long depth of field that makes the film’s world extend far into the distance. On top of that, many of the scenes are deeply layered, making the 3D effect more prominent than usual. In one scene, there's a good seven layers from front to back (not counting the actors): a potted plant, a chair, a bike, a barrier, a house, another house, and finally some trees. It’s one of the first times in a 3D film that the image truly looks like it has depth.
Another key aspect is that the film is often rolling at a higher-than-usual framerate. That does give Goodbye to Language something close to the much-dreaded "home video" look, but it's stylized enough with bright colors or contrasting highlights and shadows to not matter so much. The result is some gorgeous imagery that makes me really want to see a nature documentary in 3D.
He mixes 2D and 3D
This may not sound like succeeding at 3D, but it actually leads to a couple of interesting results. For one, it's kind of funny: one of the very first things that you see in the movie is the term "2D" printed in 2D with the term "3D" hovering over it in 3D. It's a little inexplicable, but it's sort of a necessary joke to get you in the mindset for this film.
The more interesting use of 2D, though, is when archival footage (or, at least, what looks to be archival footage) is interspersed with the newly shot 3D footage in the film. In many ways, this is a modernized equivalent to cutting back to a black-and-white flashback. The fact that it's 2D lets us know that it's out of the modern narrative.
He totally messes with your vision
Sometimes the 3D in Goodbye to Language looks crisp, clean, and downright gorgeous. Other times, it'll drive you cross-eyed — and that's exactly what Godard wants to do.
In what's easily the coolest use of 3D in this film, Godard actually splits the image in two. 3D movies are normally shot with two cameras that remain perfectly side-by-side, one capturing an image for your left eye, the other capturing an image for your right eye. But in two scenes of Goodbye to Language, Godard has the left camera remain stationary, pointed at an unmoving character, while the right camera pans to the side to follow another person's movements.
At first, you have no idea what's going on — your eyes twist in pain, you lift your 3D glasses up in confusion. Then, suddenly, you see it: close one eye, and you see 2D action of the character on the left; close the other eye, and you see 2D action of the character on the right; leave both eyes open, and the images play on top of one another, fighting for your attention and only letting you ever really see their essence. Ultimately, Godard has the two cameras rejoin again, completing the picture and relieving you of discomfort.
It's actually kind of uncomfortable to watch this film
That type of discomfort is used throughout the film in other ways as well. In many situations, the two cameras will be positioned slightly too far apart, once again turning your vision cross-eyed. Alternatively, it means that you can shut one eye and see farther around a corner than you might otherwise have seen. (In a maddening twist, this distortion effect even stretches over to the film's English subtitles on occasion.) One of the more clever uses is when this distortion occurs between two characters on either side of the screen, essentially creating a schism between them that twists your eyesight when you try to look. It makes for a very evocative separation between the two characters — a separation that’s so tangible you can quite literally feel it.
These are obviously not all techniques that should be used by most (if any) mainstream films, but they turn 3D into much more of a marvel than it currently is. If all movies are going to be 3D one day, it'd be pretty disappointing if directors never figure out novel ways for using it to tell a story — and Godard is, unsurprisingly, quick to search for something new. This film is called Goodbye to Language, and you have to wonder: perhaps this is an ode to the end of one cinematic language, and the greeting of another.
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Goodbye to Language is currently screening at the New York Film Festival. It opens in theaters on October 29th.
The first time someone lays a 3D-printed piece of candy in your hand, you almost feel bad about eating it. The virtuosity of these pieces confuses the senses: stunning hexagonal structures cluster together like a complex chemical construction, full-color starburst patterns curve as if made from fabric, and neon geometrical shapes interlock without a single seam. On first glance, you think each one is a piece of art and meant to be consumed only by the eyes. But then you taste it and realize this is a whole new recipe.
Sugar 3D printing is a relatively new development and a fun sense-oriented detour under the “additive manufacturing” umbrella, which has often been largely about function. Not to mention this is a huge development in 3D printing materials alone, especially considering that they’re all edible. No chemicals allowed. If we can 3D print with sugar, you have to wonder how many more materials are out there that we haven’t even considered yet.
Most importantly, food 3D printing empowers us to build upon the culinary traditions that are so deeply imprinted on our cultural psyche. Food, as we can all attest, occupies a prominent space in the human experience. After all, we always seem to gravitate toward the kitchen as a gathering place, and one of the greatest pleasures of being human is making and enjoying a meal with someone else, whether it’s to catch up, celebrate, remember, or imagine the future. As culinary practices shift, so too do the experiences that surround them: they become heightened, enriched. This is exactly the kind of progression that food 3D printing will catalyze, as bakers, chefs, and confectioners take hold of capabilities never before realized, giving new shape to the moments of life that revolve around our food culture.
Interlocking 3D-printed candies.
The Sugar Lab
The Sugar Lab at 3D Systems is the birthplace of sugar 3D printing. Think of it as our bakery and the place where all the amazing, sweet creations you see here come to life. Liz and Kyle von Hasseln, who began developing 3D printed food out of their small apartment while they were architecture graduate students, founded the Sugar Lab. For this husband-and-wife team, it started as a simple experiment with unusual 3D printing materials. They first attempted to print in wood, using sawdust, and later ceramics and concrete. Those all produced mixed results. But next, motivated by the need for a special birthday decoration, they tried sugar. After a few months spent perfecting the recipe, they realized they were onto something. A bit later, The Sugar Lab took form as a full-fledged business, with Kyle and Liz using a 3D Systems 3D printer that they’d retrofitted to be food safe.
ChefJet
Now as part of the 3D Systems family, their amazing invention has taken the next step with the introduction of the ChefJet 3D printer, the first sugar 3D printer available for restaurants, bakeries, catering companies, and more. We first revealed the ChefJet at International CES 2014, and the excitement has rightfully been through the roof. Since then, candy giant Hershey’s has joined our efforts to find delectable and captivating new ways to print candy.
As Kyle and Liz put it at CES, the ChefJet presents a fantastic new outlet for 3D printing to spread throughout mainstream culture. Food being such an integral part of our social interactions, our family gatherings, and our time at home, these edibles have the chance to open a lot of eyes to the personal power of 3D printing and its myriad uses.
3D-printed sugar sculpture for cakes and more.
Chocolate-flavored hexagons.
How It Works
For those familiar with the different methods of 3D printing, sugar 3D printing is similar in principal to other technologies like ColorJet or Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). It uses a bed of powdered materials (in this case sugar), flavoring, and sometimes cocoa powder. A stream of water bonds the sugar together within the material bed to form a single layer, then the build platform lowers, a new layer of sugar is spread over the build area, and the machine builds the next layer. So it goes layer by layer until the sculpture is finished.
The results, as you can see here, are just as magnificent as printing with plastic or metal. The ChefJet is virtually unlimited by the geometry or the complexity of the model you want to print. You can create interlocking pieces, perfectly straight lines, and smooth curves, all in full color if you desire. Considering the sugar sculptures that it creates, it makes sense that architects thought it up.
Edible 3D-printed elements provide structural support for cakes.
To date, The Sugar Lab and the ChefJet have created everything from customized sugar cubes and structural cake decorations to premium cocktail decorations and exact scale Ford Mustang replicas. Flavor choices are equally delicious with mint, cherry, sour apple, milk chocolate, and others.
But what I love about the ChefJet and other 3D printers is that they provide yet another tool and a multitude of other options when it comes to artistic applications. I discussed this in last month’s blog: 3D printing in this respect can supplement the traditional methods, and recipes, that we’ve developed over years and years. In this case, it’s about building on tradition, not overpowering or replacing it. So now bakers and confectioners can match their delectable flavors with never-before-seen visual aesthetics. They can have their cake and eat it too.
Note: remember Second Life? Well, here it comes again (as Linden Lab just announced an "Oculus Rift-able" version for 2016), interestingly in this case (below), twisted by Renato dos Santos for educational purposes.
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Somehow, this way of playing around laws of physics makes me think a little bit to what we learned back in the late 90ies when fabric | ch played a lot with shared digital worlds (projects like La_Fabrique, or MIX-m. Home made technologies like Rhizoreality): the fact that indeed, the laws of physics could be scripted or at least customized, like in games. Or the fact that two "persons" (their avatars) could share the same space, "talk" to each other through mediated means, but not see and inhabit the same environment, the fact that things could therefore have several states at the same time (quantum reality?), etc.
We certainly learned within digital worlds what drived conceptual appoaches for later projects "in real life", like RealRoom(s), Tower of Atmospheric Realtion(s), Perpetual Tropical Sunshine, etc. Even very recently, a work like Deterritorialized Livingis related to that -- DL is about the creation of an artificial troposphere, driven by different rules than a natural one, yet inhabitable too.
The ability to modify the laws of physics in the virtual world of Second Life is allowing researchers to experiment with entirely different laws of motion.
Second Life is an online world in which people use avatars to explore and interact with each other and to build more or less anything based on simple geometric shapes. These objects are governed by a set of roughly Earth-like laws of physics that simulate conservation of momentum, gravity, and elasticity in collisions and so on.
But Second Life also has a scripting language that allows residents to introduce additional effects. It allows them to buy and sell objects using virtual money, to create textures for clothing as well as animations.
And it allows the behavior of objects to be modified in various ways. In other words, in Second Life, the laws of physics are up for grabs.
And that raises an interesting prospect. This scripting language allows people to simulate universes in which matter is governed in an entirely different way.
Today, Renato dos Santos at the Lutheran University of Brazil in Canoas reveals his efforts to tamper with the laws of physics in Second Life and how his microworlds allow students to study and experience laws of motion that are entirely different from the ones that work in our universe.
To begin with, Dos Santos characterizes the properties of matter and the laws of physics that are already at work in Second Life. He points out that the world has some relatively complex laws to govern the weather and the rising and setting of the Sun.
“The Second Life ‘Sun’ usually rises and sets each four Earth hours always directly opposite a full Moon,” he says. And the servers compute a simplified solution of the Navier-Stokes equations to simulate the motion of winds and clouds that time-evolve across the entire world.
On the other hand, there are no fluids in Second Life. “Water is a mere texture applicable to an object,” he says. Consequently, there is no water resistance or air resistance and no concept of buoyancy. What’s more, light simply exists in Second Life without any physical mechanism involved in its production or propagation.
All these factors and others have to be taken into account when designing a microworld in Second Life. Nevertheless, Dos Santos has been able to create a number of interesting simulations.
A good example is his simulation of a cannon firing cannonballs to study their trajectory. One of the first challenges is to use the Second Life scripting language to introduce a set of initial conditions for the cannonballs—their initial velocity and position, for example.
Having done this, it is possible to calculate their position and velocity at any point during their flight. It is also simple matter to calculate their kinetic energy and momentum.
Once fired, these cannonballs do not travel in a straight line, however. Instead, gravity pulls them towards the ground and wind can push them off course. Dos Santos says it is possible to build rules into the scripting language that counteract these forces. That’s what makes possible an entirely different set of laws of motion.
To demonstrate this, Dos Santos has created two different sets of laws that can be put into operation with the push of a button. The first is Newton’s traditional laws of motion, which lead to the familiar parabolic trajectories.
The second set of laws are based on the theory of impetus that was popularized by Jean Buridan, a French priest and medieval scientist active during the 14thcentury. This theory was an important intellectual precursor to the more modern concepts of momentum and acceleration.
Buridan’s ideas were an extension of Aristotle’s theory that “continuation of motion depends on continued action of the force.” Buridan extended this by introducing a property called impetus which he formally defined as weight multiplied by velocity.
One of Buridan’s students described impetus in this way: “When something moves a stone by violence, in addition to imposing on it an actual force, it impresses in it a certain impetus. In the same way gravity not only gives motion itself to a moving body, but also gives it a motive power and an impetus …”
Buridan’s mathematical formula for impetus allows it to be incorporated into a Second Life simulation, which is exactly what Dos Santos has done. This allows students to experiment with different laws and see their effects.
Interestingly, Buridan’s laws result in a cannonball trajectory that is a little like that of a golf ball which travels on an upwards inclination and then suddenly drops due to air resistance.
That’s an interesting approach that has useful potential applications in education. But there is surely much more that can be done in virtual worlds like Second Life.
One interesting question is how to devise experiments within the virtual world that tests the particular laws of physics in action and the situations in which they break down.
For example, the concept of time might be investigated using experiments involving simultaneity. It might even reveal loopholes that can be exploited for a bit of fun.
An approach like that would require significantly more ingenuity and would simulate more accurately the work of physicists in the real world who do not know the laws in advance and have only their observations to guide them.
This kind of approach has been tested in virtual worldssuch as Minecraftbut there is clearly scope for the same approach to be applied elsewhere.
The laws of virtual physics are there for the taking, should anyone have the ingenuity and the spare time to pursue them.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1405.6703: Second Life As A Platform For Physics Simulations And Microworlds: An Evaluation
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