Blasting Music Creates Unique Patterns On These 3D Printed Ceramics

Have you ever seen pottery in action? It might look simple, but it is deceptively tricky, and trying to get all the weird and unique shapes and grooves is actually a lot of work and has a ton of skill involved. However it seems that one potter by the name of Olivier Van Herpt has come up with an interesting way of creating the patterns on his creations.

For starters instead of using a traditional pottery wheel to create his pieces, Van Herpt has opted to use a 3D printer instead, or to be more specific, digitally controller clay extruders which are basically a modern take on the traditional coil pot. He also teamed up with sound designer Ricky van Broekhoven, and together they setup a speaker that sits directly beneath the 3D printer.

As you know, sound comes out in waves, and by rigging the speaking to emit very low-pitched sounds, it sends waves through the ceramic as it is being layered on top of each other, thus creating weird and unique patterns that would probably be extremely difficult to recreate by hand.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen sound waves being manipulated to create art, which is what musician Nigel Stanford has done in his music video (see below), but overall it is a pretty cool concept, huh? Imagine being able to buy a vase or a plate that’s patterned after the sound waves from your favorite song, would that be something you might be interested in?

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: 3D Printing, art