Sculpture  

Jonty Hurwitz's nano sculptures were created using bleeding-edge technology.  Too small for the naked eye to see, the sculptures were created using multiphoton lithography.

Aartist Jonty Hurwitz’s new sculpture series recreates the smallest human form ever at 20x80x100 microns, a scale too small to be seen by the naked eye. According to Hurwitz’s website, the size of these sculptures approximately equals the amount your fingernails grow every 5 or 6 hours.

The sculptures, “Trust”, “Cupid and Psyche: The First Kiss”, and “Intensity”, explore the idea of science vs. legend, myth vs. reality.

They were created using a ground-breaking new nano 3D printing technology and a technique called multiphoton lithography. Ultimately these works are created using the physical phenomenon of two photon absorption. As Hurwitz puts it, his art is literally created with quantum physics.

When a light-sensitive polymer is illuminated with ultra violet wavelengths, it solidifies wherever it was irradiated in a kind of crude lump. Some of you may have experienced a polymer like this first hand at the dentist when your filling is glued in with a UV light.

If however longer wavelength light is used, and focused tightly through a microscope, at the focus point, the polymer absorbs two photons and responds as if it had been illuminated by UV light. This solidifies the polymer.





This two photon absorption occurs only at the tiny focal point - basically a tiny 3D pixel (called a Voxel). The sculpture is then moved along fractionally by a computer controlled process and the next pixel is created. Slowly, over hours and hours the entire sculpture is assembled pixel by pixel and layer by layer.

"We live in an era where the impossible has finally come to pass. In our own little way we have become demi-gods of creation. "Contemporary" art, in my humble view, needs to reflect the human condition as it is today, it needs to represent the state of society at the time of its creation," states Hurwitz.  "Take a moment to consider that only 6,000 years ago we were painting crude animal images on the walls of caves with rocks. We have come far. This nano sculpture is the collective achievement of all of humanity.  It is the culmination of thousands of years of R&D."


SOURCE  Jonty Hurwitz

By kree8tiv

Embed