Join us October 15, from 6 to 9 pm, for the artist reception of Digital Skin: New Jewelry Designs by Michael Gayk. On view from 9.28–10.23.09, Gayk’s work challenges the ways in which we present our bodies to the world and, using cutting-edge rapid prototyping technologies, examines the line between ‘the material world and the digital.’ Below is a Q&A with the artist…

( Check out Creative Loafing’s mention of the Digital Skin exhibition in their “Clog” )

Up: How did you get started in the arts and what was the progression to get you where you are today?

Gayk: My first introduction to the arts was through our local museum in Rochester, NY. The Memorial Art Gallery held weekend arts classes and I attended a drawing and cartooning class. I guess I was around 10 or 11 years old. Later in high school photography was really exciting for me and I remember my teacher Mrs. Bacon always announcing to the class “Say something, anything, just mean it and live it”. What she said stuck with me, that art could represent ideas and meaning, that opinions and insights could be represented by color, shape, form, gesture, mood, texture, and material. I was hooked, I fell for the power of making art.

After high school I continued to study photography then later found metalsmithing and blacksmithing much more demanding both intellectually and physically. I certainly enjoyed feeling active and physically engaged with a material, but metal was much more for me, it connected me too my family history of tool and die makers and machinists.

Teaching has led me to where I am today. Being an educator and a crafts-person dualistic. I teach and maintain the foundations of metalsmithing and the importance of handwork. On the flip side, as an researcher I am obligated to push my discipline and myself into unknown and less comfortable areas of discovery. This is where I am now.

Up: How long have you been working with rapid prototyping technology?

Gayk: First lets define prototyping. In the Industrial Design context, prototyping is a segment of the product development cycle. A prototype is a likeness or surrogate for the actual intent of the designer. It is used for example in ergonomic and tooling studies, presentations of an idea, or in the car industry used for surface(paint and highlight) and wind analysis. Around 1997-98 while employed at General Motors was my first introduction to prototyping outside of college. I was a clay modeler, and used “rapid” cutting techniques to shape clay from a computer model. We employed CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) milling machines to rough cut 3rd scale and full size models for wind tunnel testing. The only reason why this is “rapid” was because it was faster than the conventional way of roughing in a model which was performed by highly skilled craftsmen. The process would start from an rendering and full size drawings of the product, then templates and splines had to be manufactured from those drawings, placed along measured increments that would signify surface changes in direction and detail, then the surface had to be built and sculpted to mach the templates. Now all the designing and drafting is contained on the computer with full size drawings and math representations of surfaces that control and drive the mutli-axis milling machines and prototyping equipment. Interesting enough, in the end the clay modeler would then follow the CNC machine and smooth the surface by hand as the cutting tools would leave a path behind.

Graduate school was my first step towards using rapid prototyping in my personal work. I started learning CAD (Computer Aided Design) more intensely, trying to internalize how I might use this technology. At this point, everything I ever did stayed virtual and existed only as digital concepts. It wasn’t until 2002 when I taught at Kendal College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids Michigan did I start to output my ideas and consider using this technology.

Up: How is using this technology different from making work traditionally (jewelry or otherwise)?

Gayk: There are a lot of differences and for me the biggest one to hurdle is the separation of hand and object. Philosophically, when designing and conceptualizing in the virtual world, the intellect drives my emotions and hand. This is the muscle that I had to exercise the most, I could no longer rely on my sense of touch to drive my intuition or the will of the material to steer the design.

I still sketch and brain storm but my intent hasn’t changed from making body adornment or functional craft objects. The computer is just another tool set to be learned and pushed as much as a hammer is.

The biggest difference that the public would see is that my designs are all executed in plastic or resin. The rapid prototyping technologies that I am currently using builds from these materials. Also, I am able to free myself from the conventional limitations of physical space and material. I am able to in-bed patterns and geometry under the surface in a way unattainable by hand. With this body of work, you will notice surface pattern and interior images that could not be accomplished any other way.

Up: Please explain, for those of us that are unfamiliar with this technology, what the “process” is for making the type of work that is in the exhibition, i.e. how long it takes from inception to production, the expenses that are involved, the notion of the “original work of art” vs. “production work”, etc.

Gayk: The process is quite simple to understand if you break it down into three components:  1. Design. 2. Processing. 3. Output.

Designing is cared out on the computer in any of the vast 3-Dimensional CAD (Computer Aided Design) packages. For this collection of work I am using a CAD package called Rhino 3D, but the most important key to this part is the exporting of the native CAD file format. The CAD package that you design in must be able to export as an .STL file. This stands for Standard Tessellation Language or in the rapid prototyping world Steriolithography. This type of file converts your model into a text string of Cartesian coordinates that contain the world axis’s x,y.and z. Essentially the model is converted into a mesh easily pictured as a fishing net but instead of the net made up of squares it is made of triangles.

Processing is a step that reads the .STl file and slices the model into specific sized layers. These layers correspond to the type of rapid prototyping machine you are working with as each machine has its own parameters for the type of material. For example, the work at Gallery Up was built on a SLA (Selective Laser Apparatus) machine in-which each layer of the model was .004 inches thick. It is important to understand that these machines are “additive” in nature. Meaning that they construct objects by adding material layer by layer. The SLA machine invented by 3D Systems uses a scanning laser that traces the outline and interior of each layer of the .STL file and cures photopolymer resin to build the model. The model is built on a platform that moves vertically down as each successive .004″ layer is cured.

Processing is usually done with proprietary software provided with the rapid prototyping machine. After slicing the .STL model,

the resulting multi-tiered, linear path data is compiled into a build file specific for the machine.

Output is the action of building. After processing and slicing the model, the build file is loading onto the machine and depending on the type and sophistication, you can sometimes just push the play button. Of course just pushing the play button is a simplification of a much more involved set up, but there are many different types of machines that allow are varies levels of interaction.

After the build is complete, the part is removed from the build chamber and ‘post processed’ as needed. In the case of the SLA machine, the part is built in a vat of resin and to stabilize the part to the platform supports or stilts are need for the connection. These supports are removed and the remaining uncured resin is cleaned from the part. Further processing can be done like hand sanding, polishing, dying, painting and metal plating. Also depending on the technology used to build the part, it can be invested and traditionally burned out and cast in metal.

The length of build time depends on the vertical size dimension which would be the z height and the position of the part on the build platform. I have had parts that took 1 hour to build and up to days. Most of the work in the this show took less than 3 hours to build. Design time can though take longer. There are many variables for this, one being the computing power you have to work with. Designing in a 3D environment takes a lot of computer memory and processing time. There is one thing that makes this whole process unique from traditional making is that I can perform multiple changes and renditions of an idea very fast before I start to build. So design time can be fast depending on the geometry, but it can also allow for multiple options on one design.

Here is where we can start to conceptualize customization of products depending on the needs of the its functions.

The expenses involved in doing work like this can be overwhelming at first. You need a computer and design software first.

If you want to own a rapid prototyping machine, 3D Systems offers a desktop, user friendly version for around $12,000.

But owning is not the only solution. There are many service bureaus that offer inexpensive output options. In the past couple of years, the cost of output has dropped more than half. Service bureaus like Shapeways have redefined the business model for the cost of output. They have dialed into a market centered around the designer and allow sales of the designed objects and the consumer to take place on their website. So as the buyer of the art purchases, the art is built. No inventory to keep track of and the designer can update their product almost instantly. In my opinion this is the way the industry should go, as artists and designers need more accessibility to technology that in the past was to expensive and exclusive.

The notion of ‘original or production’ is interesting. Lets not forget the traditional printmaking scenario, where editions are numbered

and priced accordingly. I feel the same can be applied here. On one-of-a-kind work, I feel the digital file is the original and all actual

objects are the editions. That being said, I control all the originals and do not release them.

Up: What are the advantages and limitations of making art this way?

Gayk: Its easy to just push print and build everything that you design, its harder to be your own editor. When I work in precious metals I am always conscious about whether my intention and design is worthy enough to be made. Its easy to forget that when you work in plastic and resins. I think the down fall of this technology is that even poorly designed objects still get produced and replicated.

Just because you can design it digitally does not validate its existence in the real world.

Up: Can you talk a bit about your the inspiration for the show and the concept of “Digital Skin”?

Gayk: I am becoming more and more influenced by Design history and the philosophies of design. Here is an interesting quote from

the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens;

“Fact, fact, fact. … You are to be in all things regulated and governed

by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of

commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of

fact, and nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether.

You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any

object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You

don’t walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon

flowers in carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies

come and perch upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrapeds

going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented

upon walls. You must use for all these purposes, combinations

and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which

are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery.

This is fact. This is taste.”

Here we have an exclaimed house inspector from Coketown railing a young girl’s aesthetic choice about having carpet with flowers on it. Historically speaking this passage is important because it sets the tone for the repetitive and monotonous design motifs of early industrialized England. Also it has links to the Department of Science and Art, an commission organized to regulate the design philosophies of England’s colonies, particularly India. For me, the most prolific connection is the influence the DSA had on the Bauhaus and other emerging design hot beds spawned from the Industrial Revolution.

A deeper inspection of the motifs for adornment reveals a honed and geometric counterpart. I am interested in the investigation of  adornment and pattern making through interchangeable parts, again amidst another type of industrial revolution.

Digital Skin is my metaphor for the surrogate craft culture, the reevaluation of the body through digital reproduction and the mathematical re-figuration as both the model(digital) and the object(actual). Digital Skin comes from the act of convergence, translating tangible data into an abstract.

Up: What, in your opinion, will be the natural evolution of this technology (in the art world and otherwise)?

Gayk: I think mechanically we know how this stuff works. We know how to build this way.

The evolution is always in the material science. New materials possibilities will push this technology. Materials like silica, different types of clay bodies, skin cells and human circulatory tissue is the future.

We are starting to see research done on an architectural scale with machines that can build in meter units instead of inches and millimeters.

That’s exciting to me.

Tags: design, digital, gayk, jewelry, rapid prototyping