Scream A 3D Print, Literally

A truly amazing installation of what's called "Production Art" is now open for viewing - and screaming - at Rabobank HQ in Utrecht, Netherlands. Screaming, you ask? That's exactly what visitors must do when the visit Alicia Framis' "Screaming Room" exhibition. You scream, the waveform is recorded and translated instantly into a 3D model (a customized cup-like shape) and finally, through the use of a conveniently attached Ultimaker 3D printer, your shape is produced in real life right before your eyes. 

 

The best part: you get to take your piece home at no charge. 

 

We think the Screaming Room is a wonderful combination of art, 3D modeling, 3D printing, digital data capture and audience participation. As always, results are usually greater than the sum of the parts. If you're in Utrecht, the exhibition is open until September of this year. 

 

What other 3D printing collisions with art are possible? 

 

Via Ultimaker (Hat tip to Bart Bakker)

Hear and Feel Your Favorite Sounds

This is interesting - Shapeways has teamed up with online Sound sharing site SoundCloud to produce  "The Vibe" a very unique 3D model creator. From your SoundCloud account you can select your favorite sound, perhaps a song or yourself speaking. This sound's waveform is automatically transformed into a visible representation of the wave as the back side of an iPhone case 3D model. 

 

Of course, you then print the generated 3D model at the Shapeways 3D print service in a material of your choice. 

 

We think this is yet another terrific way for general public to gain access to 3D printing technology. All too often enthusiastic folks take a step towards 3D printing but collide with the big barrier of 3D design. While some people can overcome that barrier and learn how to develop their own 3D models, many cannot. Services such as this from Shapeways are essential to growing access to 3D printing. 

 

Via Shapeways

Printing Sound

Contrasting opinions are a main feature of today's communications. We read opposing viewpoints on and endless series topics, words versus words. But what if you could actually *see* the words colliding? That's the question Canadian artist Eva Schindling set out to discover when she produced her work, "Liquid Sound Collisions".

  

The artist took two recorded voices and virtually sent them through a computer-simulated fluid environment towards each other. As each voice hits the virtual fluid, the fluid distorts and moves in complex, but predictably ways. Eventually the distorted fluids encounter each other causing a unique shape to develop.

  

This shape was captured digitally, no doubt after the artist watched frame by frame sequences endlessly to select the best view. Once captured, it is a straightforward matter to convert it to the proper format suitable for 3D printing. The result is the strange object shown above. Schindling: 

Each study sends two words that can be thought of as poetic opposites - chaos and order, body and mind – as vibration source into a fluid simulation. The waves created by the sound files run towards each other,

they collide and interfere with one another’s patterns. The moments of these collisions are then translated into 3D models that are printed as real sculptures.

The chosen words that depict dualistic world views are opposites, yet

are displayed as the turbulent flow that arises between the two

extremes.

 

Words have meaning. Now they have shape - be careful what you say!

 

Via Boulder Pavement, Shapes for Sound and Flickr

Image Credit: Michelle Kasprazak

Rapid Prototyping used to Create Sound

Jun Murakoshi is a researcher in Department of Design Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan. Among his works is this interesting device made via rapid prototyping technology: the "noisy instrument". According to Jun, the device:

is a wearable instrument for listening the noise like seashell makes.

One can imagine future experiments where software is applied to works such as this. Using advanced sound wave modeling software, it may be possible to engineer the shape to produce certain types of sounds. Then, once identified, the sound-producing shape can be filled out with other design elements to develop unique sound-making artifacts. Of course, then they can be punched out into real objects using 3D fabrication machinery.

Via Jun Murakoshi Design