Haptic Intelligentsia – Bringing Craftsmanship Into a Computerized Technology.

HAPTIC INTELLIGENTSIA is a human 3D printing machine that allows the user to tactually perceive the virtual object and to directly transform it into the physical. The user can freely move the extruding gun, which is attached to a haptic interface. When the tip of the gun is moved into a surface region of the virtual object, the interface generates forces under computer control, allowing the user to feel and touch the surface of the object.
Without looking at the computer screen, the only way to visualize the virtual object is to pull the trigger and extrude the material along the feedback surface. The results are always unique and different, depending on how each user responds to the machine’s guidance. The sense of touch is no longer present in our current screen-based interface. HAPTIC INTELLIGENTSIA humanizes the 3D printing process, bringing the user a tactile relationship to the virtual object.

The artwork is part of ‘The Machine’ exhibition organised by Z33 from 1 June 2012 at C-Mine (Genk, Belgium). A preveiw, featuring the work of THOMAS MAINCENT (FR), THOMAS VAILLY (FR) and JOONG HAN LEE (KOR/NL), will be presented at Ventura Lambrate in Milan, Tuesday 17 – Sunday 22 April 2012. The exhibition focuses on mashines and technologies developed by the artists as part of the process, or as the end result in creating a work of art in our post industrial era.