Luis Navarro

Faculty member, School of Visual Arts, New York City

Led by Suzanne Anker, the chair of the undergraduate department at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), my colleagues and I have brought computer aided fabrication techniques into the hands of student artists. For the past five years as a staff member at SVA, I have collaborated in the construction of a ‘CNC Room,’ in which state of the art equipment, including laser cutters, a CNC Router, milling machines, a plasma cutter, 3D printers, and 3D scanners, has been installed. In conjunction with these machines, we use a collection of software that covers the most popular techniques for designing and modeling, from Open Source to the industry leading standards. As a faculty member I teach a digital sculpture class that shows students how to use 3D design software and digitally aided fabrication techniques to create new sculptural work. We use traditional sculpture fabrication techniques with these new technologies to maximize the possibilities of digital media. Because they possess no prior knowledge of the software and hardware, the students bring fresh perspectives on what is possible both technically and conceptually. The integration of traditional and digital sculptural techniques provide both tools and media with which to express new ideas and considerations.

School of Visual Arts CNCRoom. 2011. Photo ©Raul Gomez Valverde.

Copper Chloride, Luis Navarro, bronze, motor, electronics. ©Luis Navarro.

3D Printing Roundtable Presentation, 2014. Luis Navarro. ©Rachel Clarke. (Used with permission.)

Bio:

Luis Navarro is both a faculty member and the Systems Administrator for the Undergraduate Fine Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He currently teaches “Digital Sculpture,” a class in which undergraduate students learn how to use myriad 3D design software and digitally aided fabrication technologies to create works of art. He is also the Windows Administrator for the BFA Fine Arts Department and helps to maintain the 2D and 3D fabrication machines at SVA’s CNC Room, including ABS plastic and plaster powder 3D printers, a CNC router, and laser cutters. He graduated in 2009 with an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts and has exhibited in New York and Puerto Rico.