Rock Collection

Wild Times merged 3D printing and a 2,680-mile thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (from Campo, Mexico to Manning, Canada) as a means of meditating on wild landscapes –  both geographic locations as well as the terrain of our psyche. I was particularly interested in the correlation between our shrinking untamed wildland (only 3 % of the contiguous US is considered wildland) and the intense pressures to mine our experiences for social media – to make our inner world “productive.”

Over the course of my 5.5-month hike, I sent photo and 3D files, blog posts, Instagrams, and related public programming to a series of five West Coast museums and art venues where the transmissions were printed, installed, and shared – evolving into cumulative exhibitions.

Each day I hiked, I “collected” a rock using a photo app on my phone. These images were turned into 3D mesh files that I then transmitted to the museums I was working with. The museums printed the files, live in the gallery using 3D printers, in colors coded to the elevation I found the rocks. Over the course of the hike, this pile of rocks grew to evolve into a colorful cairn, a sculpture, and a map of my journey.