Fabrication and Form

The sculptural bodies of homunculus.agora have an uncanny organic quality consisting of four petal-like limbs that have appearance of being fleshy, plant-like, and artificial in the same instance.

Five forms were generated as polymorphic mutants of the same species in Rhinoceros 3D modelling software. The pieces were cast in a low VOC bio-based resin and assembled by hand over the course of several weeks with a team of six people. It was purposefully not a factory precision process as the manual assemblage of the pieces gave rise to further mutations in the pieces, so much so that no two are exactly alike, lending to the organic feeling of the work.

Inspiration for the shape of the pieces came from the illustrations of Theodor Kerckring (1671). Kerckring who was among a group of thinkers in historical medical practice, known as ovists, that believed embryogenesis of humans begins exclusively in the egg, and that humans are fully formed from the beginning of conception [1].

Theodor Kerckring's drawings of the "little man inside the egg.”
Images taken from Kerckring, Theodor. Anthropogeniae ichnographia. Frisius, 1717.

When designing the sculptural bodies it was important to consider how the forms physically related to the human body so that they would be relatable to the human experience. Five forms were generated as polymorphic mutants of the same species in Rhinoceros 3D modelling software [2]. Then negative moulds were milled using a large CNC-mill located in the YDSL. What followed was a painstaking manual process whereby the pieces were cast in a low VOC bio-based resin called Super Sap by Entropy Resins [3], using a sustainable fibre composite substitute for fibre glass called Aqua-Veil by Aqua-Resin [4], and assembled by hand over the course of several weeks with a team of six people. It was purposefully not a factory precision process. The manual assemblage of the pieces gave rise to further mutations in the pieces, so much so that no two are exactly alike, lending to the organic look of the work.

[1] Needham, Joseph. A history of embryology. Vol. 1959, no. 374. CUP Archive, 1959. pp. 96-153
[2] https://www.rhino3d.com/
[3] http://ndstudiolab.com/projects/ndnode
[4] http://www.arduino.cc