“A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the-art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” This is the first line you’ll hear when you start playing the 39-second voice clip from “voice sculptor” Gilles Azzaro’s Next Industrial Revolution, an artistic reworking of President Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address. Though you’d probably never realize it without the audio, they’re also the first words you’ll “see” if you walk past the glass case holding a mountainous 3D-printed translation of the clip. Azzaro tells Wired UK that he began working on his piece the day after the address, converting Obama’s voice print into a 5-foot, 22-pound sculpture whose 3D-printed ridges make it jagged from afar and lushly layered when magnified. Azzaro explains his process and ideas to Wired, but you can watch Next Industrial Revolution being made and played for yourself, and Azzaro’s website holds more pictures of this and other “voice sculpture” work.
This is how you turn Obama’s speech about 3D printing into a 3D-printed sculpture
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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