Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Joris Laarman Laboratory, The Starlings Table, 2010. SLA synthetic resin, nickel plating.


First, an animation of starlings was scripted digitally. Then a frame was captured that resonated with the studio. This frame was brought into another program which was used to extend each of the birds wings to connect their tips. Another program translated that file into a file suitable for creation using stereo lithography. Laarman proposes the piece as unique, each iteration would be a different freeze of the original animation of the starlings. A natural phenomenon, the flocking of starlings, also called a murmuration, has been harnessed digitally to create a series of tables. This justifies the table’s existence, rather then its form or sensitivity to weight. SLA has allowed designers to borrow from nature directly, Ruskin would be proud of the natural depictions. But there is no distillation of the essence of a starling made manifest in a table: just a table made of starlings made of synthetic epoxy resin.

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