Morningstar Form Expressed Through a CNC Cutting Machine

"Eclipse"

In my first semester here at MIT, I was lucky to be accepted into Neil Gershenfeld's class, "How to Make (Almost) Anything" at the Media Lab.

Check out the work I did in this class on my class webpage, which includes the final project, "Morningstar Lightchamber."

It's been fun, extremely challenging, and ultimately liberating to learn digital fabrication methods. This week, I got to use a Shopbot, a computer numeric control (CNC) cutting mill, and I decided to express the morningstar form through this technique.

I used an inexpensive piece of OSD to create the form which began as a vectorized image.

The material required much post-prep after cutting in order to effectively depict a morningstar.

I decided to add strips of LEDs in between the layers to create a glowing star, which can be hung on the wall and plugged in to an outlet.

It's still a work in progress, but it was a great way to learn computer controlled cutting, I look forward to continuing with this tool to create unique and possibly useful forms!

I exist in a world of ideas

I exist in a world of ideas

Building ladders and weaving hammocks in my imagination

To swing from my place of contentment

Between thoughts of peace and strife

Seeking solutions to problems for a moment or a lifetime

Predicting possible futures and visiting the past in a flash

Ancestors embrace and buoy me from behind the curtain, just beyond where I can touch

I exist in a world of ideas

Breathing intangible perceptions and recycling them for use as bodily fuel

Floating in a vast ocean on another planet too many light years away to get there by flying

Projecting myself into the minds of others to find out their motivations and expand consciousness

Protecting myself with a bubble of thought-neutrons

Spinning a web of possibility to help me make decisions

Listening, I find the world around me and the one within are not that different

I exist in a world of ideas

Take flight in my dreams but have some trouble landing

Through sieve-like senses, I filter the universe

I am tiny and I am large

I am ugly and I am beautiful

I am a doomed wretch and I am an enlightened being

I get stuck in a vortex and have trouble pulling myself out, but I keep trying

I exist in a world of ideas

I am a vessel through which things flow, and sometimes what comes out is a mystery to me

I have a path and yet I am directionless

Befuddled and walking through a strong wind, I alight on a sail and suddenly all is right

Wading through information, gathering it, sorting it, and stacking it in piles for later use

But hoarding is not good for my mind, so I learn to let go of the clutter

Facts are embedded in a mineral substrate, I am chiseling to get to the big ones but sometimes get lucky when I find a little one, rare, crystalline and relevant

Pounding and pulling, building muscle mass, making a mess

Stepping forward in a random choreography of thought patterns

I exist in a world of ideas

 ©2016 by Erin Genia