Image: LiveWire, Miebi Sikoki

LiveWire

Miebi Sikoki


The conceptual basis of LiveWire explores the relationship between ideas and tools. Both enable each other and in this perpetual catch 22, therein lies the evolution of both, technology advances as social constructs become more complex.

The capabilities of computer technologies are constantly improving and spreading further into different areas of modern life. From 3d printing to CNC Routing, digital technology offers a new genre for exploring alternative digital fabrication techniques that can be used to communicate, develop and actualize ideas. This is an explicit characteristic of the place computer technology holds within our culture.

Open source software, online 3D object repositories and the democratization of manufacturing through 3d printing are integral to this project as they add to the evolution of the tool by continuously changing the context of its use, keeping it in a constant state of iteration.

LiveWire is an open source mini CNC wire bender that promotes the creation of novel structural systems through processes of digital fabrication and assembly. it can take lines and curves created digitally and replicate them in brass wire. It can output any 2d vector line and can be clipped or soldered together to create more complex 3D structures.

These sculptures are direct externalizations of digital data, captured and implicitly translated in objects that can be touched. This physicality to data layers its meaning, even triggering latent connections to its digital counterpart.