Digital Sculpture's Material Turn: From Bits to Atoms

The boundary between digital and physical is dissolving, reshaping sculpture as a hybrid medium. Bruce Sterling's 2005 concept of 'spimes'—objects trackable in space and time via information—anticipates this shift. The Internet of Things and 3D printing enable objects to be scanned, algorithmically transformed, and re-materialized, echoing teleportation. Two exhibitions exemplify this: 'Material Want' at iMAL in Brussels (2016) by Matthew Plummer Fernandez and Jodi, which assembled random 3D-print files from users into unsettling, error-driven sculptures blending Dada and Surrealism with digital fabrication. Meanwhile, Italian artist Quayola, based in London and exhibited at the Quadriennale in Rome, reworks classical statuary through software, deconstructing figures into raw matter—a post-digital take on Michelangelo's non-finito. Both processes reveal deep parallels between traditional carving and digital modeling, preserving millennia of sculptural memory through new tools. The article, by Valentina Tanni, appears in Artribune Magazine #34.