Turn Me On
Aluminum, Electrical Devices
20 x 20 x 78 in.
This piece is an aluminum 3d printer that automatically attempts to print itself with nothing. I am irresistibly drawn to machines, so much so that he is aware of its pitfalls and understand it’s an illusion, yet he can’t help myself. As Octave Mannoni once said, “I know very well, but nevertheless.” I am hopelessly and helplessly in love with these mechanical marvels. My heart is set on creating a machine—a 3D printer, to be precise. This machine is meant to create more machines. Yet, I ask for nothing in return. What it will create is the poetry of movement: the graceful dance of carriage blocks, the harmonious rotation of stepper motors, the symphony of its sounds, and the silent consumption of energy.The process of the 3D printer working is what captivates my soul. My love for this machine is pure and unconditional, blind to its utility. In this dance of mechanics and emotion, I am the creator, the artist, hope-lessly enamored with the beauty of its operation. Love is blind, even when it is for a machine.
It is built through the same fabrication processes—CNC machining, mechanical assembly, and 3D printing—that are typically used to produce efficient, functional machines. However, in my practice these processes are not employed merely as design tools to fabricate components for an installation. They function as a form of craft and embodied labor that directly shapes the conceptual structure of the work.
I intentionally construct the 3D printer with the precision and care expected of a productive industrial device, even though its task is structurally futile: it attempts to print itself without material. The time, skill, and technical competence invested into making a non-productive machine are essential to the work’s meaning. Fabrication becomes a way of staging love, desire and eventually fetishism.
By insisting on CNC accuracy, mechanical refinement, and operational reliability, the work mirrors the logic of industrial production while simultaneously withdrawing its promise of output. In this way, fabrication is not subordinate to concept; it is the mechanism through which the concept is enacted.
This approach reflects my broader practice, in which making is not simply a means to realize an idea, but a site where technical rigor and conceptual contradiction coexist. Craft, precision, and care are preserved even when usefulness collapses, that is exactly the purality of a desire that lose its purpose.
Detail
In Gallery
Photo by Yoka Gong