Piecing It Together / Week 10 & 11 / Proposal and Sketch for Final

PROJECT: Mechanical Reproductions

DESCRIPTION: Using Francis Picabia’s collage, Very Rare Picture on the Earth (1915) as a blueprint and building a 3D version using the laser cutters, the CNC router and 3D printers. Also planning on adding a moving mechanical feature to it using gears and marbles or ball bearings.

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INSPIRATION: Francis Picabia’s machine paintings that were on display at the MoMa’s Francis Picabia: Our Heads are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction exhibit and a past ITP project, Visualizing Time: A Marble a Minute.
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STEP #1: The Sketch
I sketched Picabia’s painting in Illustrator keeping in mind that this 2d vector drawing would be laser-cutted and possibly 3D printed for some parts. I wanted to build a drawing of a structure from scratch that symbolizes a working system (ex: filtration of data or the human body), but I found it helpful to replicate and work off Picabia’s design. I will eventually adjust things to make the gears and tubes more functional to create movement of a ball or marble inside.
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STEP #2: Materials
  • Base/ Frame: To create the base and frame by layering wood on top of another and cutting it on a laser printer or using the CNC machine.
  • Cylindrical Pieces: Using the CNC machine to make the cylindrical pieces.
  • Gears and Flat Pieces: Laser cutting them from wood and adding metallic colors of silver and copper to make them more metal-like.
  • Metallic Finishes: Going to look into gold leaf or patinas, but bought some metallic paints to also test on the wood.