Featured maker: Joshua Harker on 3D printing and live scribbling. 

For a decades-old technology, the 3D printer has garnered considerable attention in recent times. Increasingly accessible and efficient, they are celebrated for putting out objects of unprecedented intricacy. They’ve broken technical manufacturing barriers to manufacture the otherwise unmakeable: truly bespoke prosthetics and microscopic machine components. 

But the otherwise unmakeable also includes art. For Joshua Harker, the 3D printer has become a new medium for his organic—and previously paper-bound—scribbles, which marry living forms with mathematical precision. We spoke with Harker about his main influences, and ‘live’ design process. 

You describe yourself as as ‘scribbler’. How has scribbling impacted your sculptures?

Although “scribbler” is sometimes used for writers, I use the term to refer to my incessant sketching and drawing on nearly anything with blank space. I’m always working through ideas and planning projects on the fly. The spontaneous approach to getting those thoughts out—and recorded—is how I approach my sculptures in the digital medium. 

Would these sculptures exist without 3D printing? What kinds of possibilities has the technology created for sculpture?

Much of my work, specifically the tangles series, could not exist without the technology. They are actually historically significant in that they are the first forms to break a design and manufacturing possibility threshold. They represent the ‘perfect storm’ of state-of-the-art software, 3D printing technology, materials engineering, and artistic vision. The possibilities of the medium are staggering, and the freedom of form is unparalleled by any other medium. It allows for intense intricacy, complex symmetry, multi-material iterations, mathematical generative explorations, scaling, and reproduction without any fall in quality. I try explore those possibilities as much as possible in my work. 

What process is used to translate an intricate doodle to three dimensions? How long does it take?

My sculptures don’t really incorporate any sketching or other pre-concepting work. The process is quite fluid, and the designs are refined as I further develop a piece. It all happens live, so to speak; no pre-planning nor multiple iterations. The approach is very similar to how I draw—only sculptural. Many of my works take over a hundred hours to develop. 

In terms of style and subject matter, what inspired your drawings and sculptures?

The surrealist movement has an exceptional influence on my art. I’m inspired by naturally occurring process: electrical treeing, fracture patterns, anatomical systems, symmetry, growth, and decay. Incorporated imagery and influences include organic mathematics—like phi, knot theory, fluid and turbulence dynamics—as well as vermicular and arabesque design.

Shop Harker’s sculptures here. 

Posted at 2:22pm and tagged with: joshua harker, consignd, 3Dprinting, sculpture,.