Fountain

Fountain is a complex sculpture built from a combination of commercially manufactured rotomolded plastic children’s toys with specially designed rotomolded plastic “Blobwall” bricks designed by Greg Lynn FORM. Both objects were digitally laser scanned and imported into the three-dimensional modeling software Maya. Using a technique of “animation snapshots” along curvilinear paths, the Blobwall bricks were arrayed in two spiral patterns, one clockwise and the other counter clockwise, and the shark toys that spout water were arrayed in a third counter clockwise spiral pattern.

The pool of water is bounded by a perimeter array of whale toys. The intersections one-against-another of each of these individual objects was defined as a series of curves in the digital model. Each of these curves was exported as a cutting path to an articulated arm cutting robot. Each part was placed on a custom made jig and uniquely cut by the robot. The custom cut parts were positioned and manually heatwelded one-to-another. Flexible plastic conduit hoses were threaded throughout the entire assembly and connected to brass spray nozzles. After complete assembly the entire Fountain was spray painted white. The Fountain rests on a fiberglass coated wood skid that serves as the water pool and connects to a separate reservoir with the pumps and manifolds.