3D Printing Unknown Pleasures

(2013)

The sculpture "Unknown Pleasures" is a 3D remix of the 1979 iconic record cover of the English New Wave band "Joy Division". Originally created by the designer Peter Saville the cover design was inspired by an information visualization of the neutron star / pulsar CP 1919's radio pulses in The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy.

In order to print the 2D graph in 3D the single graph elements were first vectorized based on the pixel image. Then each Bézier curve was extruded into single 3D slices with the creative coding software Processing and exported as 3D model for printing with black PLA filament.

The sculpture was exhibited in the London Science Museum, EuroMold 2014 (Makerbot Europe), Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography in Pasadena, among other places. Since it was published under Creative Commons license each exhibition printed the sculpture on site instead of shipping it around the world.

3D Model at Thingiverse

3dprinting, joydivision