Challenge :
Produce 3 art objects within 5 days.
Solution:
A contour face mask and two life-size hands with the forefinger and thumb touching
as if pinching, all stainless steel, giving the subjects a detailed and highly luxurious look.
Impact:
for the client: The possibility of unlimited realization of the creative intent.
Artifacts have been created that cannot otherwise be produced in any normal way.
for us: Designing and testing a new type of support that is easy to remove.
for both parties: A completely atypical commission and a unique experience
where machinists and goldsmiths create art together.
Result:
Timely delivery of artifacts made of metal and Zdeněk Vacek’s victory in the category
of the best installation at the prestigious Designblok 21 competition, and of course
the indescribable pride and emotion of his mother Jitka.
Service: End-product manufacturing
Materials: 316L stainless steel, Waterclear
Technology: Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), Stereolithography (SLA)
Post-processing: Support removal, Sanding and surface smoothing
2 weeks to the start of the exhibition: Zdeněk comes with a vision and a story
He decided to express his respect and love for the woman who gave him life, in his own way. Zdeněk Vacek, winner of the Czech Grand Design for the best jewelry, did not buy a flower or chocolate. Instead, he came to us with a very unusual, but quite clear idea. He wanted to make his mother’s face and hands from stainless steel on a 1:1 scale and decorate them with Czech garnets.
“I like my work to mirror handicraft and contemporary technologies at the same time. In the project
Jitka-PUK-3D-UPM, my wish was to capture
the features of my mother Jitka in a futuristic and yet faithful way while she works on PUK (microspot welding for fixing precious stones) and to pay tribute to her for the 8 years she has been decorating jewelry with this method. This is a very immersive, painful method of jewelry art which demands a great deal
of patience. Jitka’s face and hands symbolize for me the places where the demands of her work and her mother’s mission and virtues are most reflected.
Face and hands under scanner: Optical digitization of the maternal essence
We collaborated on the project with colleagues from 3Dees Industries, who arranged
for Zdeněk to scan his mother Jitka using the ATOS Q 3D optical scanner from Carl Zeiss GOM Metrology.
This data then served as the basis for algorithmic modeling in Grasshopper, in which Zdeněk created a digital model for printing.
Even before production, we (with regard to the chosen material 316L) optimally oriented
the mask and hands at ONE3D and used a unique support system for them. These supports had to not only support each complex part with their shape, placement and structure,
but also be easily removed from it during manual post-processing, all with zero impact
on the extremely important and delicate aspect of the entire work – its visual aspect.
We have 5 days: How and from what will we produce the pieces?
The exhibition itself was still 14 days away, but we had to complete all the preparation
and production within one working week. Production was by no means the last step towards the final presentation of the parts. After production, it was still necessary to arrange for transport, manual post-processing, PUK microwelding of Czech garnets and the actual installation in the exhibition space at the Museum of Decorative Arts. Fortunately, all this was already taken care of by the skilled goldsmiths from Zdeněk Vacek’s team.
“Due to the critical time pressure
and the insurmountable deadline,
we also made parts from photopolymer
in parallel to have a backup variant.”
The mask and hands were made of both 316L stainless steel using DMLS technology
as well as Waterclear photopolymer using SLA technology.
So how much respect can one have for a woman, and how long does it take to create it?
The correct answer: Immeasurable and a lifetime.
Nevertheless, the one we created at ONE3D had the following parameters:
Mask and hands including photopolymer supports:
- sum of the volumes of the parts: 157 cm3
- production time: 24 hours
Mask and hands including stainless steel supports:
- sum of the volumes of the parts: 207 cm3
- production time: 28 hours
The production from metal went quite smoothly in the end, and considering how good
the plastic parts looked, Zdeněk decided to use a combination of both versions for his installation at Designblok.
Stainless steel, polymer, video, copper:
Jury: just look at that!
Zdeněk Vacek is well aware that the object of modern art is not only the art object itself,
but also its arrangement, which is why he took great care in every detail of his installation.
For example, the information board that contains facts about his mother’s level
of commitment (how much patience and how many fingernails and hours of difficult work
it cost her) aren’t too far from Voyager’s Golden Records.
All the information here is precisely etched into the copper plate. You can compare
its accompanying avant-garde video to the video above from our production.
You will see that although both are about capturing the same process, the approaches
of the artist and the industrial company are quite different, to put it mildly.
No wonder, then, that Zdeněk Vacek easily won the prize for the best installation
of the exhibition from the jury. And we are glad that we were there.
Mixing the world of technology and art was indeed an uplifting experience for us.
Special thanks to Václav Jirásek, who brought us great memories thanks to perfect photos.
