The possibilities for rapid prototyping technologies (based on the successful execution of repetitive tasks with suprahuman accuracy) for the service of mankind were recently fodder for science fiction writers and the lunatic fringe.

In Sam Rami’s  1990 production of Darkman, Liam Neeson plays a mad scientist who 3d prints synthetic flesh:

Computer Numeric Control (CNC) has matured from punch card to paper tape, from the tool room floor to dispensing increasingly complex organic compounds serving the most intimate of human needs,  an unimagined future is unfolding: proof that reality is far more unpredictable than any fantasy.

A Stratasys promotional video features their technology used in a Parisian fashion show. Given the success of the technology (and the money spent on producing original work) useless frivolity is forgiven:

Bright, shiny things aside, I am much more impressed by the use of the 3D printing technology to build a hand for a child:

and what this still developing technology might mean to a lot of other human beings.

A once burgeoning technology is finally trickling down to children with birth defects, veterans, accident victims, and cancer survivors.

In no small part aided by President George (“The Decider”) Bush’s positively medieval comprehension of science, technology, and bereft of any concept of  “tomorrow” (too involved with rapturous fantasies?), scientists in China have successfully 3D printed living kidneys.

While entrepreneurs have been quick to commercialize this technology, we would have been nearly a decade further along with this – and related stem cell research – had President Bush had not placed a misguided moratorium on this research.

Peter Terezakis
ITP, Tisch School of the Arts
http://www.terezakis.com