Introduction: Teaching Touch With Robot
I have been building sculpture for over ten years and I have observed the evolution of machining technology go from hand-tools to power tools and CNC milling to 3D desktop object printing. These ‘making machines’ have formed a physical gap between my hands and the materials I sculpt, and I see this as a problem. As a contemporary sculptor, my challenge involves utilizing the advantages of modern rapid prototyping and making-machines, yet, I want to maintain physically natural material interactions with the objects I form. Making machines tend to produce mediated experiences of sculptural production that dilute my material awareness and may even distort my ‘tacit knowledge’. I believe I must form a new hybrid making partnership between my hands and machines, in an attempt to narrow the physical gap that has formed.
This project is a new application for telesurgery style technology but with the goal of developing rapid prototyping technology that allows makers to work with materials - hands-on.
The first version of this project can be found here:
