Grossman studied math at Yale before becoming an artist. “The undercuts in this piece just couldn’t be created in traditional sculpture,” says Visser. One advantage of digital sculpture is that it allows artists to create forms that wouldn’t be possible to make by hand. Artists are asking questions like, how do you take data that’s not visual and make it visual?”īelow, check out five of the 3D-printed sculptures from the exhibit, which included works from artists ages 18 to 104: “With 3D printing you can scan reality and print all kids of data.

“Human beings have been attempting to represent the 3D world since man first started drawing on the walls of caves,” Visser says.

“It’s a field that attracts pioneers and experimenters,” says Visser, who has been digitally designing sculptures since 1985 and started 3D printing them in the late 1990s. Digital sculpture draws on elements of math, engineering, architecture, and computer programming, and many of the artists have technical backgrounds. The exhibit was open to the 300-plus engineers attending the conference, and in this case art and science have more in common than you might think. Visser chose 37 sculptures, 25 of which were printed on the Forty Acres, to display in the Alumni Center on Tuesday night only. You’ve probably heard about how the rise of 3D printing is revolutionizing the science and technology sector-but did you know it’s transforming the art world, too?Īs part of a 3D-printing symposium at UT this week, engineering professor David Bourell asked digital sculptor and Southwestern University art professor Mary Visser to curate an exhibition of 3D-printed art from around the world.

3d digital sculpture artists