The New Age of Art & Technology: Digital Groteqsue
For artists, the word “space” is a (no pun intended) multi-dimensional term. A painting is a 2D way of representing 3D space. A sculpture exists in real three-dimensional space. An installation travels over or through space. A viewer can enter the space of a painting, drawing, print or photograph. Galleries and museums are art spaces.
Artists aim to challenge the idea of space in whatever medium they work in, and not many artists attempt that challenge on such a large scale as do Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenburger, the two masterminds behind Digital Grotesque.
Digital Grotesque is a fully immersive, human-sized structure measuring 16 square meters at a height of 3.2 meters (10 x 53 feet). It is a room built entirely of 11 tons of sandstone, printed using a 3D printer at a resolution of a tenth of a millimeter. It took the duo one year to design, one month to print, and one day to assemble.
Digital Grotesque redefines our idea of artistic space: it changes an artist’s limitations in creating a three dimensional space, the way a viewer can enter and interact in a space, and the way a physical space is manipulated. This is all due to the presence of the 3D printer and the computational technology that work hand in hand in the design and production of Digital Grotesque.
The space is made entirely through geometric algorithms. Because of the architects’ dependence on mathematical computation, the designs and forms that are present in Digital Grotesque are much more complex than if Hansmeyer and Dillenburger had rendered the design with their own hands. Through the additive manufacturing capability that 3D printing provides, the algorithms that create the complex design can be perfectly created in three dimensions, exactly as they are seen in the abstract design of the computer. Scale is not an issue in terms of creation - the 3D printer can create forms at a much smaller scale than a human hand is capable of sculpting or cutting out.
But the real marvel of Digital Grotesque is the experience upon entering. The size of the structure is breathtaking, and the feeling of complete immersion within the environment created by Hansmeyer and Dillenburger – the size of the structure creates its physical limitation, but feels larger than life once you enter.
The design creates a unique atmosphere. The space seems both religious and foreign on a universal level and entering the space feels like walking into an alien reliquary or abandoned interstellar chapel. This is the architecture that designers for fantasy movies wish they could create when depicting the culture of humanoid species in space - astoundingly beautiful, but also dark, menacing, and decidedly celestial. It speaks to the power of the technology that made it, and to the power of those that created that technology.
And it is the technology that is powerful when it comes to Digital Grotesque. Only through the computational algorithms do Hansmeyer and Dillenburger have the ability to create this immersive space - without it, they would neither be able to create the designs nor would they be able to physically build the structure. The architecture of the space is impossible to create without a computer’s precise mathematical skill, and the idea of physical creating the space by hand is inconceivable.
When it comes to Digital Grotesque, the idea behind the structure is monumental, but it takes technology to make that monumentality a physical reality.
