Marching Cubes

January 17 – March 11, 2017

Drawing inspiration from a computer algorithm of the same name, Jesse Colin Jackson’s Marching Cubes projects use 3-D printing to make the virtual world physical. In the 1980s, researchers devised an algorithm for generating computer graphics from medical scan data, which featured an underlying language of faceted cubes. Jackson has translated this virtual procedure into sculptures, which he assembles from a modular set of 3-D printed components. By enacting the algorithm in the real world, Marching Cubes generates dialogue about the ways in which information technologies create the building blocks of contemporary culture.

Marching Cubes #18, Jackson’s most recent assembly, is comprised of over 1,000 components 3-D printed from biodegradable plastic. More than 10,000 high-strength magnets connect the components into a sculptural form conceived in response to the Grace Building lobby. The edge of the steel tile base represents a virtual boundary, a reminder of the project’s computational origins. At the edge of the tiles, the sculpture’s faceted surface is interrupted, revealing the interior connections that permit Marching Cubes to turn the computational world into physical reality.

Curated by Pari Nadimi.

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