Victory for mankind! Wilcox vs 3D Printer: Milan, Duomo

I won the battle of Man vs Machine in Milan at the Hacked event at La Rinascente department store! The challenge was for me and a 3D Printer to make the best model of the nearby Duomo cathedral within 1.5 hours. The age of 3D Printing is here but there is a discussion around where it is heading and how useful it will be. What can a human do that a machine can’t? Can the hand created object give something that a computer cannot? Or can machines do everything better? Is computerised perfection emotionless?

There was a big crowd and many people stayed for the whole time watching the progress intensely.

The clock counted down for 90 minutes, there was a little beep for every second which made me nervous.

(No Plugs) I bought a white dressing gown like the boxers and added some messages with red tape I was using in my other exhibition. We came out to the sound of the Rocky theme music.

The 3D printer was a Makerbot and was controlled by the team at wefab.it. They really got into the performance and called their machine Deep Pink after the famous ‘Kasparov vs Deep Blue’ chess match. I chose to make mine from clay. I have never made anything from clay before so was a little unsure about the result. I notice in the photo above there is a man with an old film camera. (Very suitable to the event hand/digital.)

I took some photos of the Duomo but when I started I found it difficult to remember what shape it was. There were many people around photographing and filming and for a few minutes I was thinking ‘what am I doing?’. However once I had made the first blocks I could see potential in the model and I focused on my task.

I was hearing that the 3D Printer had a little problem half way through, the model was moved a little and started printing slightly to the side, but it was fixed. The real Duomo has many details and the makerbot 3d printer is quite a simple but a fun DIY style machine.

The Editor in chief of the italian magazine Domus Joseph Grima was the referee and decided to award the prize to me.

The prize was a large ceramic ‘subbuteo’ of football team AC Milan.

‘I eat computer chips for breakfast’ Me and the We Fab team from Milan.

Thanks to curator Beatrice Galilee for the Hacked event she invited me to, referee Joseph Grima and wefab.it for their enthusiasm and skills.
More pics here

Update: After my victory the machine sent me this bad loser messages…

There is talk of another match in London very soon with a different 3D Printer. This could be an event the grows and develops. Keep following.

You can read the background to this event on my previous post here
See the other thing I made in Milan here with tape, sticks and a chair here.