This gallery is continuing its series of explorations into the intersecting domains of art, science, technology, and design with side-by-side exhibitions that look at the interplay between the technologies used to fabricate objects and the thought processes used to conceive them.

“The Curious World of Patent Models” and “The Future of Objects” are on exhibit at The Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. The complementary exhibits will show the relationship between technology and its influence over the process of conceptualizing objects, inventions, and innovations. “The Curious World of Patent Models,” is an exhibit of more than fifty scale models representing ideas submitted for United States Patent protection circa 1800-1880.

The separate but related exhibit, “The Future of Objects,” displays new digital-age fabrication and prototyping techniques in which startlingly complex forms are conceived and “grown” through the use of a variety of 3D printer devices.

According to Stephen Nowlin, vice president of Art Center College of Design and director of the Williamson Gallery, “The impact of new technologies in fields of specialized industrial design are being increasingly felt, but in pursuits such as contemporary art they are still barely known. Yet in the very near future they are certain to revolutionize all object-making to a degree that may well equal or even exceed the cultural impact of the 19th-century’s Industrial Revolution.”

Established in 1790 by Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Patent Office required inventors to submit a working scale model of their invention along with their patent application. Continuing through 1880 and the Industrial Revolution, this policy was responsible for creating a historical archive of innovation, vision, ingenuity and artistic ambition. Organized by the Rothschild Patent Model Collection, more than fifty of these one-of-a-kind artifacts along with their original accompanying documentation are on display.

As descendants of “The Curious World of Patent Models” and its spirit of inventiveness, objects in “The Future of Objects” showcase cutting-edge forms and prototype fabrication. Some have been created in Art Center’s Technical Skills Center—working with the same equipment students have access to as part of their professional education. Art Center also has partnered with Solid Concepts Inc., North America’s largest multiple technology company, to showcase additional contemporary forms.

David Cawley, director of Art Center’s Rapid Prototyping and Model Shops, said “What’s incredibly remarkable is that the 3D printing technology showcased in “The Future of Objects” is going to be commonplace in the next 10 years or so. Just as the PC revolutionized the way we live and do business, we’ll have 3D printers in the home which will benefit us in ways we can’t begin to imagine. Both the applied arts and the fine arts will move into uncharted new territories using these magical tools.”

“As a way of symbolizing the bridge between past and future technologies and their impact on human ideation,” Mr. Cawley continued, “we plan to digitally scan one of the hundred-fifty year-old patent models and grow two clones using a 3D printer. One will be displayed in the exhibit and the other presented to the Rothschild Patent Model Collection as a commemoration of the profound links existing between past and future innovation.”

Read more about this and other Entertainment Engineering topics in our online magazine!