Something blocky and something blobby come together
Sketches | Renders | Fabrication
Sketches
Renders
I decided to move forward with the particle in a box idea. The idea grew on me as I kept thinking about it, and it was a good way to incorporate physics, something that I have a great interest in, into my art. First, I created a 3D model of my object that I would later fabricate. During the modeling process, my idea shifted a bit from what the sketch presented. The waves that go below the box were initially positioned in a way that I felt was unstable and wouldn’t be able to hold up the box on their own. I changed the layout of where the waves were positioned to help in this regard. The colors were chosen based off of what a typical 2-dimensional graph of the particle a box model would look like. The walls and bottom of the box are colored black to mimic the axes and pronounce the form of a box. The top of the box is white to indicate the possibility of the graph extending upwards, possibly towards an infinite length. The wave colors correspond to their wavelengths. There is a blue, two reds, and a green wave, each color corresponding to a different wavelength.
Fabrication
After modeling, I fabricated my object. I set the dimensions of the box to be 3″ x 3″ x 3″. The box has two solid walls and four open walls or frames. In order to have perfect cuts, I used Adobe Illustrator to create vector shapes for each side. These vector shapes were used in a laser cutter to cut exact shapes into a piece of wood 1/8″ thick.
To create the waves inside the box, I used the 3D model. The waves fit perfectly inside the box, so their dimensions needed to be exact as well. I exported each wave individually and had them 3D printed.
Before the final assembly, I painted each of the parts with acrylic paint. The walls of the box were painted black and the top frame was painted white. The waves needed to be prepared before painting. I first sanded them to remove some of the 3D printed texture, then painted the surface with a layer of matte medium. Then I applied paint to each wave, adding additional layers of paint for a more solid color.
The final step was assembling all the pieces. The box was first glued together with wood glue. Then I attached the waves inside the box, beginning with the blue wave, the red wave following it, and adding the green wave last.
Particle in a Box was displayed at the Art and Technology Exhibition Autumn 2019.