{"id":17719,"date":"2014-09-05T16:11:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T20:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=17719"},"modified":"2022-10-05T17:02:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T21:02:50","slug":"this-is-the-internet-as-3d-printed-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/this-is-the-internet-as-3d-printed-clay","title":{"rendered":"This Is The Internet as 3D Printed Clay"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have ever had trouble <\/span>visualizing exactly what internet traffic may look like Vincent Brinkmann has the answer<\/a> in the form of rough extruded clay looking a little like the ashtray I made for my (non-smoking) mother in 2nd grade.  <\/span><\/p>\n

While this may be considered a form of 3D printing to communicate an idea, the resolution is so low and the abstraction from the data so great that the project’s statement that “EXtrace reflects the change from quality to quantity of modern communication as the printed sculpture itself don\u00b4t mirror the data input that they have been created with, but conserving this hidden data physically for centuries.”  <\/em>makes me question whether the sculpture actually communicates anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

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EXtrace is an apparatus that 3D prints clay sculptures out of the appearing data amounts of the world\u2019s biggest internet node. In contrast to ancient physical communication media, like clay tablets or books, today\u00b4s communication got faster to near real-time. Furthermore EXtrace reflects the change from quality to quantity of modern communication as the printed sculpture itself don\u00b4t mirror the data input that they have been created with, but conserving this hidden data physically for centuries. As an input EXtrace uses a 2 day chart of the upcoming data transfer that goes through the internet node De-Cix located in Frankfurt am Main. This rapid data flow easily breaks the 2500 Gigabit per second mark and stands for a widely connected, fast paced and ubiquitous network of today\u00b4s communication. This data input is transformed and remapped to a physical data visualized clay sculpture.<\/p>\n

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