Elona Van Gent

laminated paper (rapid prototype)

30 x 50 x 60”, 2006

WheelClawsTeeth is an ambiguous hybrid form similar to a flower, or perhaps a wheel, or a crustacean, or a giant frog…  with a copious number of human teeth.  Its fragmented, partially assembled state suggests the sculpture is either falling apart or, having fallen apart, is now struggling to pull itself together. It is the largest 3D print I have made and was built using a LOM (laminated object manufacturing) machine. LOM machines have not been manufactured for nearly 20 years. The one used to build WheelClawsTeeth is one of only two still operational in the United States. The varying brown tones on the sculpture’s surface are the result of each sheet of paper being slightly burned as it is cut with a laser.

WheelsClawsTeeth was part of Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital, on display at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC from October 16, 2013 thru July 6, 2014. An extensive catalogue was also published.

From the Exhibition website:

Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital explores the many areas of 21st-century creativity made possible by advanced methods of computer-assisted production known as digital fabrication. In today’s postdigital world, artists are using these means to achieve levels of expression never before possible – an explosive, unprecedented scope of artistic expression that extends from sculptural fantasy to functional beauty. Out of Hand is the first major museum exhibition to examine this interdisciplinary trend through the pioneering works of more than 80 international artists, architects, and designers. Represented are some of the most compelling creations from the past decade ranging from sculpture and furniture to fashion and transport.

Organized by MAD curator Ron Labaco, Out of Hand is the first museum show to consider the impact of these new, revolutionary methods of computer-assisted manufacture on fine art, design, and architecture, and introduces the public to the imaginative expression that these emerging processes enable. Through this exhibition, MAD explores a monumental transition in the way human beings understand creation, from the earliest objects conceived and produced by individual makers through the tools of technological innovation. Today’s digital fabrication methods such as 3D printing, CNC (computer-numerically-controlled) machining, and digital knitting unite divergent artistic approaches, offering new opportunities for individual artists, architects, and designers to integrate these skills as vital part of their personal creative processes, representing the fruits of a new movement.

plaster-based powder and pigment (color rapid prototype), 19 x 11 x 9” (including stand), 2012

Thinking of figures or creatures outside the familiar categories of vertebrate biped or quadraped, Unnamed represents forms of life that thrive without skeletal structure, defy gravity by floating or flying, and process food through pores or tentacles rather than designated orifices. Taking advantage of the capacity of 3D printers to build and lay down color simultaneiously, the colorful patterns on Unnamed’s surface are not an external skin laid over internal organs but are embedded in the form, giving it a compelling beauty and other-worldly quality.

archival ink on paper on board, 47 x 43 x 1", 2012 (image is printed, mounted on 1” thick board, then routed to match the circular silhouette of the image)

Those That are Trained is the first in a series of sculptures and prints titled Wicked Portrayals. The series explores the potential of grotesque ornamentation as a visual trope for depicting particularly intractable, or wicked, societal problems such as poverty, war, environmental degradation, corruption, and inequality. A two-dimensional print of a three-dimensional digital environment, the scene incorporates imagery related to war—tank treads and guns, gas masks, helicopters—with volute foliage and beastly flourishes to form a decorative design that is complex, enticing and disconcerting.

plaster-based powder (rapid prototype)

20 x 32 x 21”, 2007

wall hung string puppet

epoxy (rapid prototype), string, clips, wall bracket

figure is 16 x 6 x 11”, 2002

laminated paper (rapid prototype)

13 x 7 x 9”, 2002

Acephilopod is derived from a combination of two monsters found in ancient and medieval literature: the Acephalic and the Sciopod.  

Acephalic, or Blemmye: “Then there is another island, south of the Brixontes, on which there are born men without heads who have their eyes and mouth in their chests.  They are eight feet tall and eight feet wide.” (The Wonders of the East, trans. Orchard)

Sciopod or Monopod: Pliny, in his Natural Histories, describes creatures which have a single broad-toed foot. They lay on their backs and use the foot like a parasol to protect themselves from sun or rain. C.S. Lewis also refers to them, calling them Dufflepods, in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Below: related 2D print of model surface vector analysis

laminated paper (rapid prototype)

28.5 x 16 x 8.5”, 2003

wood and glass cabinet containing 65 bronze objects

65 x 90 x 34”, 2000

Grand Vallery State University Library

Grand Rapids, MIichigan

wood, 6 sculptures (rapid prototypes in ABS plastic, epoxy, plaster-based powder, nylon), digital print embedded in fiberglass, 

38 x 22 x 16”, 2011

archival ink on paper

82 x 95”, 2010, details below

set of 30 objects, plaster based powder (rapid prototypes)

1.5 to 10” tall, 2010

InComplete 3D presents 30 objects from a digital model inventory as a set of bits and pieces in situ. Misplaced, leftover, or soon to be assembled, the components are open-ended invitations to repeating cycles of combining, appending, and reconfiguring.

6 x 7 x 4", iron, 2000

epoxy (rapid prototype)

13 x 10.5 x 9”, 2011

What is the origin of the expression nit-picking? The phrase comes from the task of removing the tiny eggs of lice (nits) from someone’s hair and clothing, a tedious activity that required close attention and care. The word nit, which could also refer to the eggs of other insect parasites such as fleas, has been around in the language for as long as we have records (it appears in Old English around 825 as hnitu, but it has relatives in most European languages and has been traced back to an Indo-European root, so ancient has been the association of such pests with human beings).

— Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nit1.htm (January 2011).

ABS plastic (rapid prototype)

13 x 9 x 6", 2001

epoxy (rapid prototype)

18 x 10 x 21.5, 2003

below: archival ink on paper

44 x 32, 2004

animated video, 3 min 32 sec (looping), 2009

Below: stills from the animation

recorded video and stills of customized 3D evolutionary simulation

WalkerOne is the first subject of inquiry in a series of movement studies that have an evolutionary component. The creature is difficult to identify as anything other than a loosely arranged body and limbs. It is placed in a 3D simulator that controls environmental paramentors (gravity, etc) as well as the strength and range of motion for each of WalkerOne’s joints. With the click of a mouse, WalkerOne begins a twenty-second scramble to move as far as possible from a designated starting point. Next, nine siblings, each one small DNA step away from WalkerOne, also endeavor to roll, strut, twist, flop, or lunge as far and as quickly as they can. The two most accomplished are selected and advance to another round where the challenge is repeated. They are joined by eight new Walkers whose capabilities are random mutations of the previous generation’s traits. This cycle is repeated thousands of times. A scientist might instigate this simulated evolutionary process to measure a creature’s ambulatory fitness and efficiency. For artistic purposes, however, distance travelled is not the point. What matters to this investigation is how the characters devise locomotion, their improvisations of motion and idiosyncratic attempts to accommodate their circumstances.

animated video, 1 min 30 seconds (looping), 2008

Below: Installation images and stills from video

The same evolutionary simulation process used for WalkerOne can be transferred to a more complex character model and rendered to generate a more visually refined animation. The animated video titled Walker is an example. It has been exhibited as a video installation where the animated creature is projected onto the floor (shown here) as well as a screen-based display.

animated video, 2 min 50 sec, 2009

Fallen is a short, looping video of an animated creature who falls repeatedly through space. She is already falling when she enters the top of the frame, and as she continues to drop, invisible obstacles redirect her downward trajectory. Her facial expression remains constant as she drifts, slides, stalls, twists and crashes through space. The language of the rest of her body, however, expresses euphoric abandon, convulsive pain, dismay, courage, long-suffering, acceptance, panic, and relief.

epoxy (rapid prototype, 17 pieces each approx. 4 x 3 x 3”, overall 94 x 5 x 7”, 2009

installation and details

Installation of work at The Grunwald Gallery of Art (formerly the SoFA Gallery) at Indiana University, 2006.

June 27- August 1, 2003, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg, RU

An exhibition of artifacts from Peter the Great’s cabinet of wonder combined with my work. 

The museum and installation views.

Installation of work in the exhibition Today in Paradise - Genetics and Art at Röda Sten, Göteborg, Sweden (part of the  Göteborg New Media Art Festival), 2006.

3 versions

plaster-based powder (rapid prototype)

9 x 3 x 9", 2003

laminated paper (rapid prototype)

15 x 15 x 8”, 2003

archival ink on paper

24 x 22.5”, 2005

plaster-based powder (rapid prototype

10 x 10 x 6

Set of 8 Cast Bronze Objects 

tallest is 13 x 9 x 9", 2000

Teratology consists of a set of eight cast bronze figures. Making them began with gathering a set of objects, in this case toys, dolls, plastic plants, fruits and vegetables. These objects were disassembled into an inventory of parts and reassembled into new configurations, molded, and cast in bronze. Each figure is a manifestation of teratology, the study of monsters--or more precisely, the study of deformities.

Three characteristics of this series are common to much of my work. One characteristic is the use of inventories or collections of parts that bring with them the potential of assembling meaning out of unrelated pieces. A second characteristic is an inherent correlation between the material and conceptual construction of meaning. Thirdly, central to all of my creative activities since 2000 is the topic of monsters—their multicultural and historical prevalence, their ability to bridge scientific and mythological points of view, and their seemingly infinite repertoire of morphological variation.

epoxy (rapid prototype)

6 x 14 x 6”, 2006

epoxy (3d print)

22 x 15 x 13", 2003

epoxy (3d print)

15 x 24 x 15", 2004

“...emotions are the body murmuring to the mind.” N. Katheryn Hayles

epoxy (rapid prototype)

25 x 10 x 20”, 2001

nylon (rapid prototype),

24 x 34 x 20” , 2006