‘the master’,  weighs 450 kilos by antony gormley

to celebrate the launch of their new building, metropolitan works, london will host the ‘digital explorers: discovery’ exhibition from february 9 to march 12 2009. the exhibition will feature works by leading figures from across the creative industries, exploring the potential of digital manufacturing technology.  ‘digital explorers: discovery’ will feature exhibits including antony gormley’s suspended iron figure; tord boontje’s speakers crawling with rapid prototyped insects; and timorous beasties’ bricks etched with scenes from urban landscapes.

antony gormley made use of digital manufacturing for the first time to cut the master for his figurative sculpture. previously made by hand, the process would often take up to 3 weeks. his iron sculpture was CNC routed from modelling foam, before being cast in iron and finished by hand. the figure is suspended from a beam adjacent to the CNC machine used to create it, within the centre’s imposing machine hall. 

‘the idea was to see if the volume of the body could be re-described as a bubble matrix: a tight packing of polyhedral cells that transform anatomy into geometry’– antony gormley

'digital explorers: discovery' exhibition at metropolitan works speakers made from steel, swarming with rapid prototyped insects by tord boontje

'digital explorers: discovery' exhibition at metropolitan works laser etched brick by timorous beasties

http://www.metropolitanworks.org