Kubépolis

Taking part in a sculpture exhibition showcasing the female artists of Schmiede.

Schmiede is a media arts festival that takes place each year in a former salt processing factory in Hallein, a small town near Salzburg in Austria. Schmiede attracts a diverse range of artists working in computer technologies, video and photography, performance, and many musical styles. The 10 day event emphasises knowledge exchange, egalitarian collaboration, and artistic experimentation. Schmiede supports various "Labs" which each have a specific focus, from game design to dance to artistic life with children. One of these Labs is the TinkerLab, which provides training and resources for learning about working with electronics and microcomputers such as the Arduino microcontroller.

In 2017 the leaders of the TinkerLab, Korinna Lindinger und Karla Spiluttini, curated a group exhibition of female artists from Schmiede. Each artist was provided with a 30 x 30 cm laser cut acrylic box and the instructions were simply to fill it with something meaningful for them. The works were exhibited at Kunstraum pro Arte, Hallein and Mz* Balthazar's Laboratory, Vienna. 32 artists from disciplines ranging from geology to lighting design to robotics participated, creating a "Sammelsurium" or cornucopia of contrasting works.

Development

The ideas for my sculpture mainly stemmed from exploring the material properties of the acrylic. I had wanted to learn more about laser cutting for some time and this seemed like a perfect opportunity, so I used the resources at FabLab Berlin. Originally the boxes were to be arranged in a pyramid with water flowing over them similar to a champagne fountain. Although this later proved to be impractical, I used the water as a starting point and considered how it might be possible to have water flow through the structure. As laser cutting lends itself to manipulating 2D forms, I settled on filling the box with various layers that had holes cut through for water.

I used Pinterest to research different possible textures and settled on interspersing coloured layers based on microscope slides with white layers made from Voronoi patterns. I found microscope slide images and converted them to vectors for cutting and etching using the laser machine. The Voronoi patterns were programmed in JavaScript and also converted to vectors for cutting.

Once the pieces were cut I painted the clear pieces using watercolours to resemble biological slides and finally assembled the box using acrylic glue.

Exhibition History

March 2017
Kubépolis
Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory
Vienna Austria

September 2017
Schmiedepolis
Kunstraum pro Arte
Hallein Austria

Role

Programming
Sculptor
Video and Photo Documentation