John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

Roxy Paine's ‘SCUMAK’ (Figure 5) is a computer-controlled machine that
fabricates 'sculptures' at the rate of one per day from molten low-density
polyethylene. The software-based part of the work controls the flow rate, its
duration and the time the material is allowed to cool before more is dripped
from a nozzle onto the conveyor belt below. This art-making machine removes
the artist's hand from the creative process by allowing entropy to enter the
design process resulting in individualised mass production. This brings into
question notions of originality, authenticity and authorship that are
traditionally valued in works of art. Through mechanising creativity Paine
subverts ideas about uniqueness and both craftsmanship and computer-aided
manufacturing.
Figure 6: ‘Gordon Tapper 1:10, 3D body scan of the living person’, 1999. Karin
Sander
Karin Sander’s ‘1:10’ (Figure 6) consists of figures produced by 3D scanning
people invited to participate by Sander. Each figure is created by a computer
controlled 3D scanning apparatus that produces a data file describing in
thousands of points (a point cloud) the likeness of the subject's body and
clothing. The data from the scans is used to make the figures at 10% of life-size
in ABS plastic (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) using a Fused Deposition
Modelling (FDM) rapid prototyping machine which extrudes a hot plastic
thread to show a cross-section of the subject's body. When the figure is finished,
it is then painted from photographs taken at the time of the original scan by a
technician. Sander makes no decisions concerning how the subjects will stand
or what they wear. All artistic decisions are made in programming the sequence
of events that will result in the finished object. The result is an exhibition of
figurative objects made through a conceptual programme of activity that is
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