Shiv Integer

2016
In collaboration with Julien Deswaef
Custom software, Copyleft-licensed 3D files sourced from Thingiverse, SLS nylon 3D prints, spray-filler, belton paints

Shiv Integer is a bot making assemblage art for 3D printers. Rummaging through Thingiverse, the biggest online 3D-Print community and a vast archive of user-made models - full of knick-knacks and engineering parts - the bot picks objects at random to conjoin into sculptures and gives them apt word-salad names such as "disc on top of an e-juice golf." The process follows a lineage of Dadaist readymade and chance art, but also explores the authorship-inheritance of Creative Commons licensing, as well as performing an archiving of an Internet subculture, taking cross-database snapshots of 3D-Print culture.

The bot ran anonymously with only a vague FAQ explanation. Thingiverse users either love or hate the bot; it’s provoked hundreds of comments ranging from fan poetry to hate mail, and sparked a long debate over if it makes art or spam. User’s binding stake in authorship made them fiercely active, forming a key facet of Shiv Integer, which from the outset was an anagram of Thingiverse.