Slice Forms

Non-featured

Jan 20

Written By jenna frye

Explorations from the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI) artist residency.

woven paper sculpture with two contrasting colors in the shape of a torus

Completion Date
Fall 2017

Partners
The Kang Group

Disciplines
Material Science, Digital Fabrication

Location
Johns Hopkins University

When I began my residency at HEMI, the first lab I worked with was the Kang Group, the lab of Professor Sung Hoon Kang. They knew about my work and presented aspects of their research I might be curious about given my previous interests in geometry. What an absolute gift that was, let me tell you; I’ve never felt more like a scholar.

The work that stuck out to me was their work developing cardiovascular implant devices in pediatric patients. As I understood it, the challenge was to design a heart implant for children born with heart defects that could grow with the body and prevent multiple future surgeries. Their valve designs were cylindrical and based on origami folding patterns.

This made me think about other flexible forms that could articulate from 2d to 3d space easily, and what kinds of cylinders could expand and contract. In my own research thereafter, I discovered sliceforms.

rainbow woven paper sculpture in the shape of a truncated parabaloid

two small woven paper sculptures in the shape of rhoboids

SLICEFORMS are great for exploring 2d to 3d TRANSFORMATION

white on white woven paper sculpture in the shape of a truncated parabaloid

A sliceform is a 3d object that is constructed from radial or interlocked flat slices forming a grid-like skeleton of the form. These forms can easily transition from a 2d folded arrangement to an articulated 3d form offering beautiful patterns and understanding of complex geometric solids.

After experimenting with a few classic slice forms: a sphere, a pyramid, a truncated hyperbolic parabaloid, etc, I began the practice of folding a torus shape, seen pictured above. This form is incredibly beautiful but will betray you at every step of construction. Of course I wanted to make it huge.

Many recreational sliceforms are constructed out of paper or cardboard, at a scale around three to five inches cubed. Because I was working with the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, I was thinking a lot about extremes in scale.

I encountered many interesting failures and successes as I attempted to test the sliceforms under extreme material and formal conditions such as microscopic slice forms, 3d printed sliceforms, and sliceforms that move autonomously.

I am continually attempting to scale the forms to extreme sizes, experiment with material influence and then construct the forms. The underlying geometry and surface explorations of these experimental sliceforms are both complex and fascinating but also accessible to recreational math enthusiasts like myself.