Abstract
3D printing has surely come of age. Widely available, and integrated into many computer-based design and animation curricula, it almost seems to have become a simple extension of what we already had in 2D printing. A 2D image (e.g., of a pipe) acts as the basis of a sign, which, perhaps upon further twists of the semiotic spiral, may lead one to cognition of a 3D physical pipe. But then, perhaps not. And only in a rare case would the physical pipe in turn find use as a sign of the aforesaid 2D image. With 3D printing, this order of semiosis no longer applies. Since 3D printing mainly occurs as a non-mass-production manufacturing technique, a 3D-printed artifact acts as a physical object – and generally it is printed to act precisely in that manner. It is a being that has an ontic difference from its digital source. The case of 3D printing provides an intriguing, complex, case study for semiosis, since the printables move in and out of the virtual and physical.
References
Aitken, Ian. 2005. Realist film theory and cinema: The nineteenth century Lukacsian and intuitionist realist traditions. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press.10.7228/manchester/9780719070006.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Anderson, Chris. 2012. Makers: The new industrial revolution. New York: Crown.Search in Google Scholar
Bazín, André. 1945. The ontology of the photographic image. Film Quarterly 13(4). 4–9.10.1525/9780520931251-004Search in Google Scholar
Bazín, André. 1948. An aesthetic of reality: Cinematic realism and the Italian school of the liberation. In Hugh Gray (ed.), What is cinema?, vol. 2, 16–40. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Bazín, André. 1972. Orson Welles: A critical view. San Francisco: Harper & Row.Search in Google Scholar
Benjamín, Walter. 1936. L’œuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproduction méchanisée. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung Jahrgang 5. 40–68.10.5840/zfs193651130Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 1994a. The human use of signs. London: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 1994b. New beginnings: Early modern philosophy and postmodern thought. Toronto: University of Toronto.Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2001. Four ages of understanding. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442675032Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2002. What distinguishes human understanding? South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press.Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2003. The impact on philosophy of semiotics. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press.Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2007. Intentionality and semiotics. Scranton: University of Scranton Press.Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2009a. Purely objective reality. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781934078099Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2009b. Aristotle’s triangle and the triadic sign: Prologue. In J. Deely & L. Sbrocchi (eds.), Semiotics 2008: Proceedings of the 33rd annual SSA meeting, xlix–xc. Ottawa: Legas.Search in Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1976. Of grammatology, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Flusser, Vilém. 2000. Towards a philosophy of photography, Anthony Mathews (trans.). London: Reaktion.Search in Google Scholar
Furst, Lilian R. 1995. All is true: The claims and strategies of realist fiction. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822377610Search in Google Scholar
Klein, John, Markus Kayser, Chikara Inamura, Giorgia Franchin & Neri Oxman. 2015. G3DP: Additive manufacturing of optically transparent glass. http://matter.media.mit.edu/environments/details/g3dp (accessed 27 September 2015).10.1089/3dp.2015.0021Search in Google Scholar
Lipson, Hod & Melba Kurman. 2013. Fabricated: The new world of 3D printing. Indianapolis: John Wiley.Search in Google Scholar
Matusik, Wojciech, Nobuyuki Umetani & Bernd Bickel. 2015. Computational tools for 3D printing. Paper presented at ACM SIGGRAPH 2015, Los Angeles Convention Center, 11–19 August. http://www.computational-fabrication.com (accessed 27 September 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Mcmanus, Denis. 2012. Heidegger and the measure of truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199694877.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Pearson, Jessica & Lynn Meskell. 2013. Isotopes and images: Fleshing out bodies at Çatalhöyük. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22. 461–482.10.1007/s10816-013-9184-5Search in Google Scholar
Petrilli, Susan. 2010. Working with the interpreters of the “meaning of meaning.” In John Deely (ed.), Sign crossroads in global perspective: Semioethics and responsibility, 49–88. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.10.5840/ajs200824419Search in Google Scholar
Shumaker, R. W., K. R. Walkup, B. B. Beck & G. M. Burghardt. 2011. Animal tool behavior: The use and manufacture of tools by animals. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.1353/book.98237Search in Google Scholar
Steigler, Bernard. 1998. Technics and time I: The fault of Epimetheus, Richard Beardsworth & George Collins (trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9781503616738Search in Google Scholar
Tønnessen, Morten & Tüür. Kadri 2014. The semiotics of animal representations. In Kadri Tüür and Morten Tønnessen (eds.), The semiotics of animal representations, 7–32. Amsterdam: Rodopi.10.1163/9789401210720Search in Google Scholar
Verbruggen, Dries & Claire Warnier. 2014. Printing things: Visions and essentials for 3D printing. Berlin: Gestalten Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
