Mimaki full-color 3D printing shapes techno-animist sculptures by humanoise

The Japanese post-digital artist humanoise (Taketo Kobayashi) uses full-color 3D printing to transform digital characters rooted in gaming and subcultural aesthetics into physical objects. After early experiments with SLS nylon in 2011, he now works with Mimaki systems such as the 3DUJ-553, which can produce colored and transparent structures in a single build, giving his sculptures a pronounced material presence.

For Kobayashi, the shift from purely screen-based work to additive manufacturing is more than just a technical step. In the virtual modeling process, highly complex geometries with hollow volumes and nested internal structures are created that would be almost impossible to produce using conventional methods. It is only when transitioning into the printing process that factors such as wall thickness, support structures and material strength come into play.

His elaborate, full-color sculptures are produced on Mimaki’s 3DUJ-553 in combination with Pure Clear Ink, which enables transparent areas. This gives rise, for example, to creatures with a transparent outer body in which intricate internal architectures are visible – objects that visitors to the “Digital G-O-D” exhibition in Amsterdam partly mistook for glass. In parallel, Kobayashi is experimenting with hybrid workflows: textured bases are first built up analog using modeling compound, after which AI-generated motifs are printed directly onto canvas or relief bodies using a Mimaki JFX200 flatbed printer.

In terms of content, the artist combines animist motifs from Japan’s Jomon period with manga and anime aesthetics as well as digital psychedelia. He takes up concepts such as “Tsukumo-gami” – everyday objects that are believed to acquire a spirit after long use – and transfers them to datasets, algorithms and printed artworks. 3D printing functions as an interface between code and material presence, between posthumanism, techno-animism and classical sculpture. Kobayashi expects that full-color and material jetting processes will gain importance in art as galleries and collectors increasingly place the physical materiality, imperfections and surface qualities of additively manufactured works at the forefront.