Additive Manufacturing used in Bruce Munro Artworks

Additive Manufacturing is a media buzzword these days, newspapers and the media generally grab every opportunity to broadcast how 3D printing (The popular term for Additive Manufacturing) is revolutionising everything from fashion to domestic appliance servicing.  Here at Amalgam we have been using a range of Additive Manufacturing processes for many years to help our clients realise their designs and have been both amused and frustrated by the sheer volume of (Largely inaccurate) coverage this “New” technology has been getting of late.

One area where we can report that Additive Manufacturing has been used to great effect is in the artwork of Bruce Munro, best known for immersive large-scale light-based installations in Britain, the USA and beyond. Bruce and Amalgam have worked together on several projects in the past including Mettabhavana, conceptual piece conceived by Munro in the late 1990s which we built in model form using Stereolithography for the main body and CNC machining for the base. We also worked on;

Rapunzel’s Tower,

a laser-cut acrylic sculpture and;

Spiral,

More recently Bruce has been busy working on major exhibitions in the USA and again, Additive Manufacturing has been used to great effect as an element of the artworks.

ICOS

Is a stunning example of this, nineteen Sintered Nylon icosahedrons  are clustered around a single, larger icosahedron, connected by metal tubes.   Each of the smaller icosahedra has in turn nineteen glass globes at the end of acrylic arms and within each globe is a coiled filament of glowing fibre optic.

Eden Blooms

Use a central globe of Sintered Nylon to support segmented acrylic arms supporting a cluster of fibre optic strands which splay out via a laser-cut insert to form delicate fronds of light at the extremities.

Click on the titles above to see more pictures of each artwork or here to visit Bruce Munro’s main site.