Design of the Week: Forms in Nature

This week’s selection is Thyra Hilden and Pio Diaz’s Forms in Nature. This work uses a technique we’ve not seen previously: using a centrally illuminated 3D printed structure to cast shadows on the walls of a room. Don’t believe us? Just check out the image above. 

 

The artists say: 

 

Forms in Nature is a artwork with a light source surrounded by a dense and unruly tree and root system created in miniature sculpture. The forest is mirrored around it’s horizontal central axis and forms a circle 360 degrees around the light source and thereby leads one onto the notion of a real world versus an underworld.

 

We like this item because it is more than just a 3D printed object. The light brings it to life and literally envelopes an entire room. 

  

Technically, the sculpture is incredibly complex, as seen in this close-up image. We’re wondering whether the designers simulated the light projections during 3D modeling, or if the shadows occurred organically.  

 

We can imagine this approach as a new standard 3D printed method: light sculptures. It’s easily possible to create software that would show what kind of shadows would appear for a given 3D shape. It may also be possible to draw the shadows and have software reverse-engineer the required 3D model. 

 

While that software may not yet be available, Hilden and Diaz plan to develop a series of light sculptures using this technique. 

 

Via HildenDiaz and Daily Mail