Rare Earth: Land, Water, and Planetary Digital Fabrication

Catalog description

This course will ground technical learning of sculptural fabrication within a critical examination of digital society at the planetary scale. Equipping students with accessible digital sculpture techniques that can scale to advanced creative workflows, the course will introduce core Rhino modeling skills, develop methods for smartphone-based 3D-scan-to-3D-print fabrication, reframe the notion of the digital/virtual within the context of the planetary, and foreground making through materiality. Focusing on the intersection of digital tools with the elements of earth and water, students will engage how digital tools interface with energy infrastructure, critical land studies, sustainable ecology, and supply-chain ethics. Utilizing digital fabrication methods to cast with biomaterials, we will explore the conceptual possibilities of our tools and media as co-makers with the planet. Artists such as Allan Sekula, Agnes Denes, Morehshin Allahyari, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Julian Charrière, alongside various examples from architecture and neolithic art, will complement our explorations. Habitat!