Rethinking 3D Printing for the Future

You don’t have to visit New York for a nice plastic souvenir of the Statue of Liberty anymore, you can easily 3D print one yourself. With 3D printing becoming more and more omnipresent, souvenirs of places you have never been to, and a load of other useless crap, are just a few clicks (and if you don’t own a 3D printer, a short walk to the nearest fablab) away.

Additivism (a portmanteau of additive and activism) is a movement that calls for radical rethinking of new technologies, such as 3D printing, the plastification of the world and our human position within it. Additivism has declared that the world’s splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of crap and detritus.

According to them "your shiny plastic future is a load of crap". To move beyond the crapularity they launched the 3D Additivist Manifesto: a call to accelerate the development of the 3D printer and push it to their absolute limits and even beyond, into the speculative, the provocative and the weird. Additivism seeks the unexplored potential of the 3D printer. Because every new technology comes with unintended affects that can lead to new ideas, insights, products, and possibilities.

The 3D Additivist Cookbook, edited by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke, presents speculative, imaginative and provocative works from more than 100 artists, activists and theorists. You can download the 3D Additivist Cookbook online in 3D PDF, including the 3D files or instructions you need to save turtles, print your own Nefertiti bust, or your favorite song.

Source: 3D Additivist Cookbook. Images: Additivism