| I'm putting myself at risk admitting my own confusion about that caption. Who is this square? [UPDATE: I rewrote the first para of the post, taking out the details of misunderstanding the headline.]
CAD printers have already invaded the art world, and so far the output is none too impressive. For example, Michael Rees' 3-D drawings are beautiful but when he "prints" them they have chalky, unappealing surfaces. No doubt having such a printer would be very useful to make models and prototypes, but it's not "there" for stand-alone objects. (To refer to your example, you wouldn't be trading real items, you'd be trading Play-Doh TM versions of real items--that'd be pretty weird.) Of course, ink printers got better, but yes, one of the issues I've been pounding as an artist is you still have to be careful and thoughtful in how you use them.
With the extruded house, ugliness alone won't stop them from being made. That's why I mentioned McDonalds. There's progress and then there's progress. I think at some point artists and tech people alike should ask, who wants this, and why are we making it for them? If it's so Halliburton execs can get that much richer extruding "troop housing" and "worker housing" then maybe unions aren't such a bad thing. If the progress empowers individuals (as with filesharing) I say great, but I suspect extruded housing will be a capital-intensive thing that mainly the big boys end up playing with.
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CAD printers have already invaded the art world, and so far the output is none too impressive. For example, Michael Rees' 3-D drawings are beautiful but when he "prints" them they have chalky, unappealing surfaces. No doubt having such a printer would be very useful to make models and prototypes, but it's not "there" for stand-alone objects. (To refer to your example, you wouldn't be trading real items, you'd be trading Play-Doh TM versions of real items--that'd be pretty weird.) Of course, ink printers got better, but yes, one of the issues I've been pounding as an artist is you still have to be careful and thoughtful in how you use them.
With the extruded house, ugliness alone won't stop them from being made. That's why I mentioned McDonalds. There's progress and then there's progress. I think at some point artists and tech people alike should ask, who wants this, and why are we making it for them? If it's so Halliburton execs can get that much richer extruding "troop housing" and "worker housing" then maybe unions aren't such a bad thing. If the progress empowers individuals (as with filesharing) I say great, but I suspect extruded housing will be a capital-intensive thing that mainly the big boys end up playing with.
- tom moody 3-11-2004 1:00 am