Contrafuerte Fabrication
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Contrafuerte is a sculptural grouping of 8 figures that is 3-times-life-size and constructed from almost 5000 aluminum parts. This was an opportunity to help supercharge artist Miguel Horn’s workflow to make his vision a reality. Miguel creates large-scale figurative sculptures out of laser and water-jet cut parts. His process often starts in clay where he sculpts the original forms. These forms are then scanned converted into digital slices before fabrication. This is a painstaking process can involve hundreds of detailed layers. We were able to help Miguel to automate the process of creating these layers, integrating hardware and other fabrication constraints into each part.
Collaborators - Miguel Horn, Veyko
A technically comprehensive approach exponentially improved our process for this project, by utilizing scripts to automate each challenging step.
Development
Over a dozen different scripts to automate each challenging step, from designing slices, to figuring out each layer, to finally converting geometries into faster (and cheaper) CNC cut-paths.
Strategy
Miguel and I worked closely on tailoring the tools for his process with an eye on how they could be used for more than one project. We discussed the elements that he should manipulate manually vs those that could be automated.
Teach
In the process, we taught Miguel a bit about how these tools work and how he can troubleshoot particular parts of the process. Miguel is a quick study, and has an amazing sense not only of how the tools work now, but how we want to approach each new tool.
