Jun 17, 2017 | By Julia
Most of us know what it feels like to be in love, but how does this sensation actually affect us? To what extent does it transform our bodily experience? Previously limited to the realm of poets, philosophers and, well, romantics, the sensory experience of being in love has been given a new mode of expression: the unlikely path of 3D printed data models.
Created specially for the São Paulo Design Weekend, “The Love Project” consists of a series of interactive experiments by cyber-architect Guto Requena and digital project studio D3. In “Experiment 2” of this multi-part project, exhibition visitors are hooked up to sensors measuring the changes in their heartbeats, brainwaves, and vocal inflections, as they tell a great love story from their own lives. As each participant speaks, the resulting data is translated into a circular shape that fluctuates outward in real time. Following the end of the love story, the visualizations are 3D printed as intricate mandalas.
“This experiment aims to insert users into the process, introducing how the sensors, the computer interface, and the 3D printing technology actually work,” says Guto Requena. “With this approach, we approximate the people to the process that [solidifies] their immaterial memories.”
In an earlier incarnation of “The Love Project,” the same team of artists and designers also interviewed sensor-connected participants, but with several key variations. Instead of telling a love story, participants spoke about someone they care deeply about. The data was then turned into house decorations such as fruit bowls, lampshades, and other abstract shapes. Each bump, wave, and ridge on the resulting 3D print represented a spike in the user’s emotion as they were telling the story.
In the subsequent “Experiment 2” phase of Requena’s “Love Project,” exquisite mandalas were 3D printed, emphasizing the various twists and turns of emotion in each love story. In total, fifty three true tales of love were translated into 3D printed mandalas, known collectively as “53 Love Stories Collected,” with “each one embedding in its shape the uniqueness of every narrated love story individually.”
Exhibited at the Baró Gallery in São Paulo, the experiment was curated by Taissa Buescu with the support of Casa Vogue magazine, Galeria Coletivo Amor de Madre, and additive manufacturing studio 3D AKAD.
Check out the video documentary below for an intimate glimpse at the entire artistic process, complete with individual reactions from the many “Love Project” visitors, and a peak at the final pieces.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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