For about a year now generative artist Lia has been exploring 3d printing by analysing filament and the movements of the printhead. Rather than just having 3d models printed out, Lia has been interested in the possibilities of the process by defining the location of the printhead, the speed of the movement and the amount of filament that should be extruded.

She wrote a short Processing application to directly output gCode where you just define the above mentioned. The first tests were mainly about how much filament should be extruded to create a line and how she can produce a “dot” on the bed of the printer. The first tests involved printing out all the test-code on sheets of paper and taped her 3d printed results next to it so that she would get an overview what would work and what not.

She discovered that surfaces can be continuous or chaotic, lines can be rigid or organic and filament can be closely controlled or let free to find its own form. She also developed construction methodologies that included “strings and blobs”, letting filament pile up on itself, “under-constrained wall-building” and a “natural collapse”. The outcome is a series of sculptures that are discovered by exploring the parameter space of a base model.

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