Catolith Manifestation at the Fluffy Cloud Experience! Saturday July 23rd 2022!
Two new and improved Catoliths will appear tonight at the Fluffy Cloud Experience. Fluffy Cloud is an immersive light and sound installation first debuted at Burning Man in 2019. The event will be held at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond.
This Catolith appearance is a fundraiser for Cathenge for Burning Man 2022:
Creality CR-10 S5 large format 3D printer being modified for Cathenge production.
I’m setting up a print farm of 7 of these CR-10 S5 printers. This is the first one which I am testing modifications on. This printer has a 500*500*500 mm build space, however the stock print bed only heats a 300*300 area, so I have upgraded this with a 500*500 heat mat. I also added the crossbraces since I anticipate that as the print grows tall and the load heavy that the z-axis will need all the reinforcement it can get.
Next up: I will replace the bowden style extruder with a direct drive extruder for greater printing efficiency and capability.
These feet of a “Mini-Kittolith” are one of the very first things I printed since resolving to undertake on my own the printing of Cathenge for Patricia’s Green myself.
I’ve opted to print Cathenge myself. It’s a big undertaking – typically people print something the size of an action figure, but it’s possible to do much larger things, and so I’m printing all 6 Catoliths. Doing the printing myself gives me the latitude to experiment with the design and the technique and that is essentially what artistic control is about.
I was able to source high quality yet inexpensive large format 3D printers (Creality CR-10 S5) which give me a 500*500*500 mm build space to work with. I am setting up seven of these printers at my studio in Stinson Beach. Using all seven printers at once I estimate I can produce one cat in 3 days. I’ll begin production of Catoliths by the second week of April and hazard to guess I’ll finish all six Catoliths within a month.
Of course, I get to keep the printers which opens up a whole new world of artistic possibilities for me. Building on my long experience in 3D modeling, I envision new “Crazyological” sculptures 3D printed and embellished with paint, lighting effects, interactivity and/or kinetics. It’s quite exciting!
This 3D printed Catolith prototype “Kittolith”. Printed by Christopher Christensen. This prototype features motion activated interactive purring by Theremin Barney. Ultimately, we settled on touch sensitivity through “Capacitive Sensing” as the mechanism of interactivity for the large Catoliths at Cathenge, Black Rock City 2019.
A lone Catolith with Burn Brazier in the foreground. The Burn Braziers were created by flame effects artist, Brad Allen, using WWII era propane tanks that are spherical. Brad cut these tanks in half to create monumental hemispherical braziers that provided an “eternal flame” type effect that greatly enhanced the sacrosanct atmosphere of the Cathenge Cat Temple at Burning Man 2019. The thickly dusty atmosphere shows clearly the beams of light shooting forth from the eyes of the Catolith – an important part of the Cathenge concept; emulating the cats shooting lasers from their eyes internet meme.
A view of Cathenge at night with all the Catoliths aglow, their Cat Chakras expressing the power of Holofelinity. In the center can be seen Brad Allen’s three Burn Braziers inviting people to gather around their elegant light and their nurturing warmth.
Cathenge at Black Rock City silhouetted in the setting sun upon the playa of the Black Rock Desert. The Catoliths stand in a 100′ diameter circle around the central platform where the three mighty propane burn braziers built by Brad Allen are mounted. A scaffold for shibari (Japanese Rope Bondage) was erected by Los Angeles rope artist, Argent Lloyd. Photo by Gurps Chawla.
