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Ancient art meets digital art: 3D Ceramic Printing
In the time before written languages, ceramic material was embraced as an artistic tool by our ancestors. The use of clay and other materials in primitive cultures gives us insight into the thoughts, emotions and rituals of their time. Now in the year 2010, languages can be converted to numbers and beamed across the world and ideas are processed through tweets millions of times a day. However, ceramics and technology have just met in a very interesting and groundbreaking way. For the first time in perhaps thousands of years, a new technological method has been brought to the creation of clay art-objects.
Enter 3D Ceramic Rapid Printing.
Everyone has heard of 3D Printing; wikipedia defines it as "a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by successive layers of material". Usually the objects created by these printers come out as a plastic or plaster, which is then used to create a mold, thereby enabling mass production. What Ceramics Prof. John Balistreri and his team at Bowling Green State University has done is create a binder which enables the direct printing of clay which can be fired in a kiln.
There are plenty of interesting applications of this technology which you can read about on his website or in some of the ceramic journals, but pictures speak louder than words. Objects created by this printer could have never been made by hand.
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Comments
Not only that, but you can actually create 3D Models of old clay buildings or objects from photographs and reconstruct them in their original material.
seriously cool stuff. your dad's work is stunning. any showing in San Francisco upcoming?
Your dad's definitely a cool guy, Mason.…
So exciting.
Great convo.
ps. watch the whole video - it's stunning to the end.