The past 10 working days have been very busy here in the studio. We have some new projects ramping up and several moving creatively forward, but we have had the chance to encounter a couple of very interesting projects that all demonstrate the idea of 3D modeling in new ways.

The first is Lix, the world’s smallest 3D printing pen in the world.

Well, this pen doesn’t exist yet, but it’s currently a Kickstarter project. Certainly, this direction of 3D printing will become increasingly prevalent in the creative fields, and we think it’s easy to see this technology on the museum floor. From art museums to children’s museums, the artistic and creative implications are easy to see. In science museums, while it might be easy to imagine something like this being used in a maker or tinkering space, this idea got us thinking about some new ways it might be used.

How might a 3D pen like this be used to document or record phenomena?

Could it be used instead of a pen for exhibits like pendulum drawing?

This trend of replacing a physical medium with something new is part of the allure of the other project we ran across recently – a piece called  ”36 Ventilators, 4.7m3 Packing Chips” by the Swiss artist Zimoun for the Museo d’Arte di Lugano

The amazing similarity of this piece to ocean waves and flowing water is breathtaking. No doubt, some aspects of size weight and the idea of many particles cause this movement to “flow” almost as a fluid. It reminded us of some of the natural phenomena exhibits seen at many science museums. We’re very intrigued by the idea of experimenting with this behavior in different spaces and different contexts.

What do you think? What other exhibits, installations, or devices do these projects remind you of?