And here is a single cell on the base interface substrate, which is an array of square cell faces mounted onto a wide plane, which has the control interface to a general-purpose computer.

A question arises as to the scale of this piece. At present, I am envisioning a version which can demonstrate the concept using today's techniques for manufacturing multi-layer circuit boards. So, a cell as shown here would be around an inch or two on a side.

This piece is about manufacturing technology. And it is not so much a sculpture, but an apparatus on which to cast or perform dynamic, computer-generated sculpture.

When you use computer-aided design, the design is adaptable to the manufacturing means available. Eventually, there should be templates available on-line for plugging any design into any standardized injection-molding or any other tooling system available.

In terms of Douglas Hofstadter's idea of a computer program as a genetic code, computer-specified sculpture is evolutionary. The design can adapt to the manufacturing means at hand. Particularly, to advances in miniaturization and integration. The scale of the design can be reduced as the manufacturing techniques become available to realize it.

When the scale of a movable cell falls below the resolution resolvable by touch, as know in Braille printing, then we now have a computer-interfaced device which can "morph" in 3-D in physical materials.

Blind people could at last have direct access to interactive, three-dimensional computer modeling, through a medium which behaves as "smart clay". They would have direct, 3-D feedback in response to abstract statements in terms of 3-D shape or 3-D data space.

If the cells of the structure also have a tactile sense, then the structure can communicate two-way touch. Suppose we now have a networked, deep-touch communications device and we unleash it upon the Internet.

John Varley fully developed a culture of touch in his novella, "The Persistence of Vision."

Copyright 1999 (c)