An intricately designed 3D-printed cube, which represents the melding together of art and science, is one of the republic’s contributions to an exhibit that mankind will be sending to the moon.
The cube, named Structure & Reflectance, is smaller than a standard dice – measuring 0.98cm on each side – with four of its faces each depicting a unique series of patterns.
The art piece is among a hundred artworks selected by the Moon Gallery Foundation, based in The Netherlands, as the first permanent extraterrestrial art gallery, which is set to land on the moon by 2025.
The art gallery, which comes in the form of a 10cm-by-10cm tray that is one centimetre deep, will be on board a test flight to the International Space Station – the final frontier of the human habitat in space – via the NG-17 rocket as part of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply mission in February 2022.On its return flight, the Moon Gallery will become a part of the NanoLab technical payload, a module for space research experiments.
The 3D-printed cube was a collaboration between local artist and designer Lakshmi Mohanbabu and Asst Prof Matteo Seita from the Nanyang Technological University’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Lakshmi also submitted another cube in metallic orange called the Cube of Interaction.
The patterns seen on each face of both cubes were recreated from Lakshmi’s paintings, which revolve around the concepts of unity, diversity and complexity in humankind, she said in an exclusive interview. — The Straits Times/ANN
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