Artist and 3D printing provocateur Cosmo Wenman has been scanning, 3D printing, and sharing compelling works of art for a year now and has a remarkable opportunity to scan the world-class sculptural work in the Skulpturhalle Basel museum in Switzerland:
My name is Cosmo Wenman, and for the last year I’ve been 3D scanning artwork in museums and using those scans to 3D print life-size reproductions. I’ve been sharing my 3D printable files online so that anyone can 3D print their own copies too. You can see some of my work here: cosmowenman.com. It’s been a labor of love for me. I’ve been doing it for myself, for other art lovers, and for students and educators–for anyone who’s dreamed of owning fine sculptural art, but hasn’t had the means until now.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a home filled with books of illustrations and prints which formed the basis for my own appreciation for the beauty, themes, and meaning in art. If you were lucky in the same way, and know how important that is, you’ll want to know what’s on the horizon.
Recent advances in 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies are opening up new opportunities for the average person to possess and enjoy beautiful sculptural artwork of their own. The children growing up today and tomorrow with 3D printers in their homes and classrooms are on the verge of becoming the very first generation to have an aesthetic sensibility informed by direct, hands-on access to the world’s sculptural masterworks. Their cultural landscape and visual vocabulary will be richer, more complex, and more varied than ours. Sculpture and artifacts will be able to speak to them in ways that have never before been possible.
Eventually, 3D printable designs of the entire world’s cultural heritage of sculptural masterworks will be available to everyone, and this project is my attempt to make that happen sooner rather than later.
Up until now I’ve been doing my scanning work solo, just walking into museums and scanning what was accessible. But now I’ve found an institution that shares my goal of freely disseminating art using every available tool.
The Skulpturhalle Basel museum in Switzerland has an incredible collection of more than 2,000 high quality 19th and 20th century plaster casts of important ancient Greek and Roman sculptures. The Skulpturhalle has given me permission to 3D scan sculptures of my choosing, and to share the 3D designs without any restrictions.
This is a tremendous opportunity to bring great art into people’s lives.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
