Brit Bunkley: Hazard Displaced
Artist(s):
Title:
- Hazard Displaced
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2003
Size:
- 14 inches x 22 inches x 2 inches
Category:
Artist Statement:
Yield Displaced is one of several digitally produced sculptures that I completed as a working artist at SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio. This sculpture is a paper LOM (Layered Object Manufactured object) rapid prototype. The LOM process builds an object (called a “part”) by laying down individual layers (22 inches wide) of sticky paper (similar to masking tape). Each cross section of the part is then cut by a laser. The laser only cuts through one layer of paper at a time. Each piece of paper sticks to each previous layer, eventually building a complete rapid prototype made up of hundreds of paper layers. The final “part, ” which resembles a block of wood, is then “de-cubed”. At this stage, the waste sections of the material are easily removed in cube-like pieces.
The 3D LOM in Yield Displaced was made by sending the 30 STL file to Select Manufacturing Services, Grand Rapids, Michigan, as an email attachment. The LOM was then returned to San Antonio, where I “de-cubed” it by removing the waste material, and finally finished by sanding and coating the surface with polyurethane.
At the initial design stage, I utilized the “displaced map modifier” in Autodesk’s 3D Studio VIZ (a sister program to 3ds max). This modifier functions by virtually “pushing” a dense wireframe mesh. The dark areas of the photo bitmap of the “hazard” road sign (from New Zealand) “push” the mesh in the light areas of the image, while “pulling” the dark areas. This action creates a relief of the image in the wire mesh 3D virtual object, sometimes producing objects with interesting and strange results, depending on the settings of the modifier.
Following the logic of Joseph Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs,” the original image (used as the bitmap in the displaced modifier) is also included as part of the work as a mounted 20 print on aluminum underneath the 3D distorted object.
Hazard Displaced was also created at SIGGRAPH 2002. This work is a CNC object carved from hard foam on a machine that is directed by software. The software “reads” a 3D file representing the object and sends signals to the machine that then cuts the material according to the topography of the 3D STL file.
