Response to Websites - Homework 6

The artists featured in these websites (and articles) encompass the newer 21st century approach to art making and sculpture - through digital fabrication, 3D printing, and other digital mediums. For example, Barry X Ball, a sculpture artist, explains his digital processes when developing his series, "Portrait Sculptures".  His statement tells us how after the plaster mold of the portrait is completed, it is digitized via laser scanning (which lets the model be manipulated or left alone), and then carved into stone using computer-controlled (CNC) milling machines. He then puts more work in after it is carved, but quite a bit of the work is completed digitally. Another artist, Nick Ervinck, uses digital media in his large installations, combining science with art, in order to compose work that was previously unthinkable. He says in his artistic statement, "I am particularly interested in the ways computers can be used in the realization of new, organic and experimental (negative) spaces and sculptures within sculptures and how the tension between blobs and boxes is articulated during the digital designing process." I found Lucas Maassen's "Brainwave Sofa" particularly interesting. He used a brainwave scan, measured by an EEG, to create the design for his sofa, and cut out the figure in soft foam using a CNC milling machine (similarly to Barry X Ball). Conceptually, Maassen's work is like Richard Dupont's, who uses digital technology to explore the themes of the human body, memory, perception, and social space. Bridget Millsaps article, "‘2015 Triennial: Surround Audience’ Exhibit Features Artists Not Afraid of 3D Printing & Contemporary Technology",  describes a 2015 exhibit in the New Museum which focused primarily on digital sculpture.  The article stresses how sculpture in the 21st century is being characterized by digital media and experimentation. With the rapid increase in technology, none of this is surprising.  Our daily lives are impacted by technology. We are surrounded by it at al times. It only makes sense that it would begin to come out in art. It is seen throughout history that artists are revolutionaries - we do what no one has ever seen before. This is evident in the Renaissance, all aspects of Modernism (especially DaDa, Abstract Expressionism,  Minimalism, and even Post/Impressionism). This generation is being defined by technology and technological advances. If artists were to not experiment with the newnesses of technology, and its relationship to sculpture and art, this generation of professional artists would be failing immensely, and not doing their part in paving the way for the next generation of professional artists.