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Airborne Snotty Vase: Influenza

An organic-shaped object created out of a knobby tube bent into an undulating form. Holes in the structure make it a vase.

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  • An organic-shaped object created out of a knobby tube bent into an undulating form. Holes in the structure make it a vase.

Date:

2001

Artist:

Marcel Wanders (Dutch, born 1963)
Manufactured by Cappellini S.p.A. (Italian, founded 1946)

About this artwork

Marcel Wanders’s Airborne Snotty Vase is a compelling and humorous example of the creative possibilities enabled by digital fabrication methods, such as high-tech scanning and printing techniques. Here Wanders endeavored to create beauty out of the grotesque by giving visual form to the shape of a human sneeze. Made from an enlarged three-dimensional digital recording of the microscopic mucus particles emitted during a sneeze, this vase was constructed from layers of polyamide powder fused together by heat from a laser beam using rapid prototyping technology. Holes to hold flowers were added to the design during the digital editing stage to transform this biological process into a functional vase.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Architecture and Design

Artist

Marcel Wanders

Title

Airborne Snotty Vase: Influenza

Place

Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Designed 2001

Medium

Polyamide

Dimensions

15 × 15 × 15 cm (5 7/8 × 5 7/8 × 5 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by the Architecture & Design Society

Reference Number

2007.61

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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