Change
This week, we were lucky to host a simulcast of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s TEDxChange. The New York-based conference coincided with the gathering of the UN to review the Millennium Development Goals. The eight MDGs were established in 2000 as a way to move towards eliminating global poverty, and are:
At the TEDxSMU / World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth simulcast, we had about 120 Dallasites at SMU to watch the simulcast and hear a response from Dallas native Bob Freling, the Executive Director of the Solar Electric Light Fund. As soon as we can, we’ll post Bob’s compelling talk on why electricity is key to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
In the meantime, the stream from TEDxChange is up on The Gates Foundation’s website, and I encourage everyone interested in global issues to watch the four talks from the day. Hans Rosling does the numbers like no one else, Melinda Gates talks about how Coca-Cola could be a great model for global aid, Mechai Viravaidya shares why wide-spread condom distribution has been so successful at curbing the spread of AIDS in Thailand, and Graca Machel makes the argument for why women and children are key to change. Watch here.
RapidArtNews-Pegasus
Great story from Pegasus News about the Rapid Arts Salon on Sept. 14.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tech-infused sculpture exhibit at One Arts Plaza challenges traditional beliefs about art
The pieces were sketched or molded with clay — but they officially sprang to life on a computer screen.
DALLAS — Resting inside One Arts Plaza‘s lobby is a new sculpture exhibit that utilizes all sorts of colors and textures. It’s art that you want to touch. And yet, some of the artists who created these 12 masterpieces never used their hands to create them.
The exhibit is called the SculptCAD RAPID ARTISTS Project, a clunky name that means that a dozen Dallas-based artists teamed up with a manufacturing firm to create 3D art on a computer.
“How can you create art without touching it physically?” said Nancy Hairston, founder of SculptCAD, at the Tuesday night gallery event. “We thought it would be great to gather some artists to see what they could do with this technology.”
The innovative concept behind this project made it a good fit for TEDxSMU, a local ideas-sharing conference that’s in its second year. The exhibit is co-produced by TEDxSMU and SculptCAD. SculptCAD’s primary function is to make toys, medical products, and other synthetic materials in their Dallas office.
Making 3D-printed art
Many of the art in this exhibit was created by scanning an object, like a French horn, which was the inspiration behind the Shawn Smith piece pictured above. Then, designers mold, design, and fine-tune the object with computer software. The designs are printed, strand by strand, in bronze, resin, or rubber on a 3D printer. Lasers burn the edges as each strand is printed, until it slowly creates a very real 3D sculpture. (See the video below for a great explanation.)
The art is, then, “motherless.” It’s made of synthetic material, and some of the artists never brought human touch to shape the final product. For artist Heather Gorham, she questioned if she could feel connected to her artwork. “When you touch a traditional piece of sculpture … you feel its character come out, you know its strengths and weaknesses. With [this software], would it be mine? Could I connect with it?”
Gorham likened the new technology to being a first-time parent: She wasn’t sure she would recognize the final product or feel anything special toward it. But when her sculpture arrived and she took it out of the box, “I recognized it,” she said. “I did learn to love this. … This technology is just another tool for your toolbox.”
For abstract artist Brad Ford Smith, taking his piece of artwork out of the box wasn’t enough. It looked exactly like it was supposed to – after all, a computer created it – but he felt the need to bake the artwork and cover it in lacquer and black velvet, among other artistic steps. “I needed to handle the sculpture before knowing it was mine,” he said.
The exhibit is definitely worth your time. We got to peek over the shoulders of people toying with the software on computers set up during the opening exhibit, and the concept is fascinating, if a little confusing. The exhibit at One Arts Plaza will be open through October 16, the day of the TEDxSMU conference.
We’d like to know: Do you think art created in this manner is still as special as art made by hand?
TEDxSMU Rapid Arts Salon
On Sept. 14, TEDxSMU partnered with the 12 artists from the SculptCAD Rapid Arts program for the opening of the art exhibit by the same name. The idea came from SculptCAD founder and artist Nancy Hairston, whose work in Rapid Prototyping (the industry term for 3-D printing) prompted her to think about ways to engage artists in this new technology. Nine months in the making, this art exhibit is the result of her idea.
Together, we curated TEDxTalks by artists Nancy Hairston, Heather Gorham, Brad Ford Smith and Shawn Smith. The 150 guests at One Arts Plaza (where the exhibit will be on display through October 16) had the chance to visit with the artists about their work, peruse the artists’ look books to get a sense of their other work, and demo the CAD software system the artists used to create the pieces for this exhibit.
On the day of the exhibit opening, the New York Times ran an article (linked here) talking about the advances of 3-D printing in manufacturing (quoting TEDxSMU supporter and founder of Plano-based Alibre, Paul Grayson).
We’ll post pictures from the event as soon as we have them, but in the meantime, don’t miss the opportunity to see the pieces for yourself at One Arts Plaza.
TEDxSMU
TEDxSMU, the fast-paced circus of ideas, is returning to Dallas on October 16 for its second annual conference. The 2010 theme is Starting Now: a look at issues around human survival, and how we move beyond merely surviving to creating vibrant, healthy communities.
TEDxKIDS
TEDxKIDS @SMU, the first-ever TEDx event for students, is returning on October 15 at the Wyly Theatre. 350 middle school students and 60 high school juniors and seniors will participate in this free conference, and in exchange, will complete four hours of community service.
Live Webcast of TEDxChange
Join TEDxSMU and the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth on Monday, September 20 for a live webcast of the TEDxChange event featuring Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and TED Curator Chris Anderson. Attendees are invited to stay for lunch and participate in “Dallas Responds,” which will include a moderated discussion of the webcast and the Millennium Development Goals.
TEDxSMU Rapid Art Salon
TEDxSMU is partnering with SculptCAD’s Rapid Artists program for the opening of the first art exhibit of its kind. Ten Dallas artists have diverged from their typical mediums to learn to sculpt using digital sculpting programs, and the final renderings of their creations were subsequently produced using ground-breaking 3D printing processes in materials from bronze to plastic. Please join us to see the exhibit and hear TEDxTalks from several of the artists involved with the project and visit with the artists one-on-one about the pieces and their inspiration.
D Magazine Update on Rapid Art Project
Read here what Peter Simek with D Magazine wrote leading up to the Rapid Art project:
12 Dallas Artists Go Digital With TED
One of last year’s most celebrated events had to have been Southern Methodist University’s first collaboration with TED, a conference non-profit founded in 1984 to bring together people from three fields: technology, entertainment, and design. The fall symposium was only the beginning of a new brain trust that has been kicking around town: TEDxSMU. That organization has been forging contacts between local creative classers, holding events, and basically allowing their tech-inspired approach all things thinking to begin to infiltrate the local culturati. Case in point, on September 14, TEDxSMU will open an exhibit for their Rapid Artists program. Twelve Dallas artists from various mediums have learned to sculpt on CAD programs, computer software that allows for objects to be created digitally and then rendered into 3D objects.
I’ve only seen the press release images, and while the work seems visually compelling, I will admit some skepticism about this idea in general, which strikes me as a little gimmicky. Still, the process was likely interesting for the artists involved, and they’ll be speaking at the salon accompanying the exhibition opening. More images of the work and a full release can be found after the jump.
(Image above: “Elk” by Dave Van Ness)
TEDxSMU and SculptCAD Announce Rapid Artists Salon and Special Exhibition Exploring Boundary of Sculpture and Digital Media
DALLAS – August 27, 2010 – TEDxSMU, the high-tech think-fest organized around “ideas worth spreading,” is partnering with SculptCAD, an innovator in blending sculpture and computer-aided design (CAD), for the Dallas premiere of the SculptCAD Rapid Artists sculpture exhibition. The exhibition, the first of its kind in Dallas, will open with a special TEDxSMU salon from 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 in the lobby of One Arts Plaza, 1722 Routh Street, Dallas.
“Sniffing” by Brad Ford Smith
For the exhibition, 12 Dallas artists have diverged from their typical mediums to explore the boundaries between sculpture and the high-tech world of 3D computer modeling. On display will be their final creations, each sculpture having been created and produced using ground-breaking 3D printing processes in materials ranging from bronze to plastic.
The September 14 salon and exhibition opening is open to the public, and tickets are $15 in advance, or $20 the week of the event or at the door, pending availability. For more information or tickets, visit www.tedxsmu.org/events/.
The salon will feature a TEDxTalk from Nancy Hairston, founder of SculptCAD, who created the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project to see what artists could do if equipped with tools for rapid prototype printing, 3D scanning and digital sculpture. Afterwards, the artists will be available for one-on-one discussions about their sculptures, inspiration and the experience of working with 3D modeling technology. The exhibition will remain open to the public through October 16, 2010.
The September 14 TEDxSMU Rapid Artists Salon is one of several TEDxSMU-affiliated events leading up to the October 15 TEDxKids @SMU and October 16 TEDxSMU conferences. The pre-conference events provide an opportunity to engage even more members of the Dallas community in the TEDxSMU experience, in order to stimulate new ideas and discussions. For more information about upcoming TEDxSMU events, visit www.tedxsmu.org.
Participating Exhibition Artists:
Heather Gorham, Ginger Fox, Shawn Smith, Dave VanNess, Mark Grote, Jay Sullivan, Tom Lauerman, Albert Scherbarth, Heather Ezell, Brad Ford Smith, Shane Pennington and Nancy Hairston
About the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Program
“Hare” by Heather Gorham
SculptCAD Rapid Artists is an experimental project launched by Nancy Hairston, President of SculptCAD, a leading provider of product design and rapid prototyping services. Dedicated to the creation of fine art, the project’s mission is for artists to explore and expand on the use of computer technology to design and produce sculpture. Through the project, artists could experience the freedom from the constraints of physical media that digital processes can offer, and investigate how that freedom would affect their work. The idea was to expose artists to something new, something they had never worked with, and then see what would happen.
SculptCAD Rapid Artists was founded in October 2009 and is based in Dallas, Texas. For more information about how SculptCAD Rapid Artists is changing perceptions of art in the physical world, visit http://www.sculptcadrapidartists.com.