Remix culture is everywhere. If you're a digital native, it's in your cultural DNA, and as Kirby Ferguson has noted, to create is essentially to remix. Sure, the old guard might be against it, but no matter how much hate they direct towards it, it's here to stay. And it's going to evolve.As the line between the virtual and physical blurs, and as 3D printing and scanning technologies become more ubiquitous and accessible, this mashup mindset will emigrate from the digital realm of music files and online videos into the land of physical objects. Youâll no longer just remix a song or supercut a funny movie cliche. Youâll also merge a designer chair with another one. Or a cup with an ornamental dancing gremlin. Or whatever you want! Weâll all be like Doctor Moreau, except without the bloody vivisection and mutilation of animals. Instead, weâll mutilate objects' files before printing them into existence.
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This remixing and mashing of physical objects has already begun. Using scanned files of the Met museumâs classical sculptures found on Thingiverse, hackers remixed the classics. Coinciding with that project is another one from a freshly minted RCA London grad, Ben Alun-Jones, who has been working on a similar idea that remixes physical objects called Remix.
His project presents a new way for people to scan and sample parts of an object, which can then be used in a physical remix. âThe scanning is done using a SLAM algorithm,â Alun-Jones told me via Skype. âThat stands for âsimultaneous location and mapping,â so thereâs no position sensors or anything. The position of the camera can be worked out from the video stream directly.â The device is also pretty simple to use, having just a scan button, a reset button, and a save button, along with remix software that heâs developing and hopes to release as open-source later in the year.Scanning the object creates a mesh of points, and once any holes are filled in, it can be sent to a 3D printer, CNC machine, or any digital fabricator. âFrom the meshes, you can take samples (slices of the object), which you can then mash together automatically,â notes Alun-Jones. Heâs already joined forces with some expertsâfashion designers, visual communications people, product designers, and a sculptorâto develop the project, and aims to take it to the London Design Festival in September. After this, he plans to develop it into an app.
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Remix chair made from scans of a Thonet Bentwood chair, a Panton plastic chair, and an Eames RAR Rocking Chair.You may be sitting there thinking, why would you want to do this? Why ruin someoneâs perfectly good work? Well, someone asked him just that about his remix chair (above) saying, âDonât you think youâve ruined the integrity of all these classic chairs?â His reply was, âWell yeah, but thatâs the point.â He elaborated further on this sentiment, saying, âItâs very exciting, really, to be able to try to push the technology to do things I wouldnât by myself have imagined and itâs all about developing a platform rather than a single object.âThe scanner is to Alun-Jonesâ craft what a sampler is to music production, and he sees it as the first key tool in bridging the digital/physical divide. Itâs about opening up peopleâs creativity and giving novices access to something they can use to engage with this technology, allowing them to personalize products like they would a musical track.As he says, âMy definition of remixing is sampling pre-existing materials to create new combinations according to personal taste. I think the personal taste part is key. Iâm trying to open up the power of 3D printers.â Remixing for him is natural human behaviorâitâs just taken us a while to figure it out: âI just think we only really realized it through the technical advances of music, which sped up the process, so it became clear.â
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Objects already reference other objects, and Alun-Jones believes digital fabrication will enhance this. By connecting 3D scanning to printing directly and easily, he aims to help facilitate the accessibility through cheap technology, so people with limited technical experience can engage with it. Noting how people in their bedrooms produce genre-defying music using samplers, synthesizers, and mixers, he believes we need similar tools to make use of 3D printing.This burgeoning field of remix culture could also open up interesting combinations, mixing different disciplines. He uses the example of bridges, saying that they are huge engineering challenges, but once the engineering has been done, you can use the model and scale it up or down to become a detail in a new product. âOpen source software creates modules that can be put together, mixed, and reused,â he says, âAnd I think that, as objects become more digital and digitally produced, this modularity will come more to the fore, and mixing functional, aesthetic, and even natural forms together will become easier.âAs well as the accessibility and the inevitable experimental phase where weâll probably produce all kinds of ugly crap, another important aspect to this revolution, along with low cost 3D printers, is the material we use to print. âI think that the key part comes when recycling hits a level that it becomes easier (and more affordable) to rework stuff infinitely,â says Alun-Jones.So, who knows, in a few years we could all be remixing furniture and objects just as readily as we remix music.@stewart23rd
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