All posts by Xuedi Chen

A series of studies combining computation, fashion, nature, organic and man made materials.

The pieces are first inspired by my fascination with cordyceps, a fungal parasite that attacks arthropods. Once infected, the fungus slowly takes control of the insect both mentally and physically. Before the insect dies, the fungus makes it climb high onto a branch and grip on, giving it an advantageous place to spread spores. Once the insect is dead, the cordyceps protrudes out, breaking through the exoskeleton. There are many species of cordyceps varying in size, shape an color. Most of these only attack one species of arthropod.

I wanted to express organic patterns/forms, nature and in particular the invasive characteristics of growth in certain organisms.

Process

Experiment 1: Actually growing something… Chia Test! I printed a voronoi substrate on a Makerbot with 0 infill and cancelled the print before it could cap off the object. This left me with channels where I could cultivate some chia seeds. The experiment started off looking great, but after a couple weeks the leaves filled in and the thick canopy lost all definition of the substrate form.

Experiment 2: Growth in Processing. I used the Toxiclibs library in Processing to import STL files and “grew” meshes off each other.

Result

Finally, my stab at a more polished wearable representation of my experimentation.

The large piece was created on a Makerbot Replicator 2 with live moss and the smaller head piece was made by Shapeways in white strong and flexible.

More pictures can be found on Flickr.

Starting to grow out nicely!

Status as of Friday.

As of this morning.

For my final in computation and fashion I am looking to blend digital design and fabrication with organic forms and materials.

I am very inspired by images of patterns in nature on a macro and micro level. My search has lead me to some amazing images of fungal parasite growth on insects. Once an insect is infected with these fungi, they continue living but eventually fall under the control of the fungus, going after things and environments that are beneficial to the fungus. They eventually die and the fungus then blooms and projects out through the exoskeleton ready to spread its spores for the next host.

My idea is to produce several pieces for a series of 3D printed exploration in biomimicry… accessories that form to and grow from the host human…

First test: growing chia seeds from a 3D printed substrate. I used Processing to generate voronoi forms and exported the vectors. Then the vectors were pulled into rhino and made into solids. I then printed it on a makerbot with zero infill and stopped the print half way through so it wouldn’t be capped at the top, leaving channels for the seeds.

Experiment 1: Shapelock

Shapelock was a great material to experiment with. The material heats up quickly with a heatgun and becomes moldable. When I heated a pile of it up, I decided that I really liked the organic structure, look and feel of the pellets themselves so I used that to make a couple pieces and molded it to my body.

Experiment 2: Voronoi Cells

I used a processing script from Mark K. and Shieva R. as inspiration to generate voronoi forms and brought the geometry into Rhino. Final Step, Makerbot.