Camila’s Introduction

I am a first year graduate student in computer science as well as a researcher in Dr. Buechley’s Hand and Machine Lab. I have a background in math and ceramics and use digital fabrication extensively in my own work. I am taking the class because I would like to further my knowledge of computational fabrication.

The project I have chosen to present is a piece called Air_Breath by Del Harrow. Del is professor in the Art Department at Colorado State University in Fort Collins (https://art.colostate.edu/people/dharrow/). He uses digital fabrication and traditional hand building techniques to make ceramic (and other materials) sculpture and installation. Air_Breath was a piece that Del made by modeling two different historical vessel forms: one that was more convex (breath out), and one that was more concave (breath in). He then used grasshopper to make a model that morphed between the two forms. He made an animation of this change and played it with the noise of someone breathing in and out. He also fabricated 11 of the forms out of ceramic. He did this by making one plaster mold of the most concave pot. He made multiple casts, and then put the mold back on the CNC router to carve away at it to make the next iteration. By the end, all the pots were made with just one mold. Here is a link to a lecture (42:15-46:50) where he shows the process and discusses the piece, https://mpvideo.usu.edu/media/Del+Harrow+-+Systems+and+Blind+Spots/0_6b0buj4b/28321392. The last part of the piece was a large drawing of the wireframes of the 11 modeled pieces. He fabricated a custom tool that held a pencil to fit into a CNC router that turned the router into a large drawing machine. I like this work because I think it is a great example of the power of using digital fabrication and modeling tools. I also am interested in when digital fabrication and computation can be linked to the body.