Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Sheffield Hallam University
Folder_cube: Rapid prototype artwork
This rapid prototype sculpture is representative of over twelve years of investigation and creative practice into the use of 3D printing technologies in the realisation of creative artefacts by artists and designers. This inquiry includes the generation of new art works, the international curation of exhibitions, and the publication of critical theory about new forms of 3D printing and creative practice. The work ‘Folder_cube’ (2010) was exhibited in the ‘Inside Out’ exhibition which took place in Australia and the UK and used the same digital files to make works in different locations. It was shown at: The Object Gallery, Sydney (June 2010); the DMU Cube Gallery Phoenix Square, Leicester (September 2010); Manchester Metropolitan University (November 2010); and the Poly Gallery, Falmouth (March 2011). As well as exhibiting in the show, Gwilt co-curated the selection of Australia-based artists and contributed to the staging and design of the Sydney show. The ‘Inside Out’ exhibition was based on the concept of the MadeKnown rapid prototyping exhibition, which Gwilt curated in Sydney, Australia, in 2006. This was one of the first international exhibitions where digital sculptures were emailed to a venue, to be made by a 3D printer.
As a long-term practitioner/researcher in this area, Gwilt contributed to a ten year retrospective ‘Full Circle: The Art of Materials, Research and Creation in Rapid Prototyping’, at the Southwestern University Texas (Oct 2011), which travelled to a number of US and UK venues.
In addition, the Hybrids show (MIC Media Centre, Auckland, New Zealand 2010) further explored this typology, bringing together nine local and international artists working with conventional analogue 3D media and digital media as hybrid. The work ‘folder_garden’ (2010) shown at the Networked Electronic Media art exhibition, Turin 2011, examined how rapid prototyping could be combined with other culturally loaded materials and designs.
