Italian sculptor and artist Andrea Salvatori has utilized his Delta WASP 40100 Clay 3D printer to create a variety of ikebana vases.
Ikebana refers to the Japanese art of flower arrangement that demonstrates the skill of a person who is practicing it. Salvatori drew inspiration from this disciplined art form to illustrate the inherent conflict between machine and human creation.
In this case, the artist has deliberately created a flawed design that disrupts accurate 3D prints of vessels with spherical ceramic inserts. Salvatori called his creation "Ikebana Rock'n'Roll".
Released in 2018, the Delta WASP 40100 Clay is the larger version of the 2040 Clay model. These two systems are specially designed for users to be able to explore ceramics on their desktops at scale.
The machine features a cylindrical build volume of 40 cm x 100 cm and allows for 3D printing directly on the ground or a removable steel surface. Also, the user can print clay layers without having to wait until the piece has dried.
Salvatori tried to interfere with the process by using a variety of ceramic inserts. The process of laying the material and then setting the spheres was intended to disrupt the algorithm of the 3D printing (Salvatori called it "imperfect musical accents"), leading to abstract shapes of vases.
WASP, in turn, stated that the ikebanas seemed to represent "concrete territory in which 3D printing and ceramic art co-exist synergistically." The vases were on display at the Ikebana Rock'n'Roll exhibition in Milan.
