3D-Printed Textscapes : Artist Hongtao Zhou created a new form of art where written texts are given a 3D-sculptural quality. The Chinese artist transformed texts about cities, such as those about New York and Shanghai, into skyscrapers and building sculptures reflecting the cityscape of those places.
Courtesy of Hongtao Zhou
“Textscape generates letter-sized 3D documents to visually profile the subject matters of the texts, such as cities, landscapes or figures,” explained Zhou, “these documents make reading process interactive for general audience or blind people to read as knowledge as well as art.”
Courtesy of Hongtao Zhou
The audience of this art is very versatile since the work uses various “Braille, language characters, calligraphies and number systems to bridge the text and its visuality in architecture, landscape, portraits and abstract matters” as described by the artist. This new art form, the ‘textscape’, is a very innovative way to sculpturally reflect the subject of the text. The extrusion of letters at different heights engages the readers in a new and more interesting experience. Other artists including Tyler Francisco, Rhealyn Dalere, and Chin Fang also participated in this project.
Courtesy of Hongtao Zhou
By:Hongtao Zhou
Maiar Mansour is an editor at Arch2O with a unique lens shaped by her background in architecture, visual arts, and human-centered design. A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maiar discovered her passion for UI/UX through civil society work, storytelling workshops, and freelance design for arts events. Her editorial approach blends emotional intelligence with a strong visual sensibility, guided by a belief in storytelling and design coherence. With training from ITI and Udacity and hands-on experience as a UI/UX designer, she brings fresh perspectives on how environments shape human behavior, emotion, and interaction in design.