In their latest Creative Inspirations short film, Lynda.com profiles a digital fabrication class at Eastern Michigan University in Detroit.
Lynda.com is an online education resource owned by LinkedIn. As part of their Creative Inspirations series, they’ve released a short documentary about a Maker class in Chicago (which you can watch below).
Featured in the short film are Chris Reilly and Jason J Ferguson, are two artists who have teamed up to teach other makers in a digital fabrication class.
Their aim is use 3D printing and other technologies to change the way we think about what objects mean in the physical format, or exactly what their function is. Sample questions they ask: how do objects influence our lives? How to do we ask people to use them?
Creative Inspirations & MeshBombing
His series of “unsolicited 3D printed public interventions” involves removing random small objects from a place, and then significantly altering through the medium of 3D printing. He explains:
“I like a little bit of delinquency or maybe something that is not really allowed, so the MeshBomb was I go into local establishments and I’ll borrow objects from the space and then I would design and print some objects, bring them back to the site and create a sculptural composition with the original objects so that people come into the space and they recognize that something’s out of place or a little bit unfamiliar and it gives them like this strange moment to start their day.”
One episode involved a skull ornament, which was displayed in a coffee shop. Ferguson scanned the skull, then snuck off and 3D printed a Yoda head that perfectly wrapped around the skull, leaving the locals with a curious artefact to scratch their heads over!
Reilly and Ferguson believe that the community of minds is what really fuels their work. They began workshops by supplying kits of component parts, inviting participants to build and customize their own linguaphone — an instrument which requires two people to play it, and can only be “heard” through the vibrations along the jawline.
The Maker Class in Michigan is teaching pupils the skills they need for building things, whatever these skills may include. Reilly and Ferguson have also taken their students to Maker Spaces to show them that a community exists outside of academia… and that it is welcoming and affordable too!
How do you feel about Maker Spaces? Can these creative inspirations change the way you view objects, too?
https://vimeo.com/140724011
License: The text of "Creative Inspirations Spotlight on Maker Class in Michigan" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.