Laura De Jaeger puts 3D printed stones next to the original ones in her exhibition.
Current Echoes
2021
stones (original, 3D copy), video voiceover (04’12”), video (04’32”)
The work
Monument, walk, stone, scan, again, print, film, language;
Serbian architect Bojana Rankovic was invited for a verbal walk through a new landscape, derived from a process of 3D-scanning stones, gathered on walks towards former-Yugoslav monuments. Her voice roams over the pathway as personal fragments, impressions and fluctuating thoughts. current echoes is a process of abstraction and subtraction. The work is inspired by an urge for lightness and transformative potential in commemorating practices.
The medium
When an artistic practice actively paraphrases and reformulates, material and technique become essential. In this train of thought, an important aspect of current echoes is the process of 3D scanning and printing. My interest in materiality started from an attraction to the layers of the material, in addition to the weightlessness. The found objects are all stones from pathways to modernist, abstract monuments.
To begin with, I am interested in the potential of commemorative practices in the walk, in the transformation of memory. The material functions in a similar way: the movement of the printer, layer upon layer adding new material, can be experienced through the object. The layered surface also gives the impression of a landscape - it has something topographical. A 3D printed stone furthermore contains something sensational: where, based on physical memories, we expect a weight, the printed stone is surprisingly light.
But the technique also shapes the project. Starting from an initial scan, I printed the material. In an attempt to transform the stones (move away from a pinned monument), the support structures gave them a monumental quality, once again. Together they create a potential new landscape, which I captured in a video through play with perspective. In addition, I continued with the first prints: a new scan captured the layers of the printer. A new print played with the direction of the lines and created a shift in the "topography," while integrating the support materials as a desired end result. The stones thus form a materialization of a process of transformation, visible in the space with their original, in symbiosis with the voiceover of a dreaming architect.
