ABSTRACT
Since the early 2010s, when 3D printing entered mainstream awareness, the art and cultural heritage sector has explored its potential. 3D printing has, however, yet to become as commonly utilised as early enthusiasts envisioned, and academic inquiry on the engagement potential of 3D printing technologies within museums of art and cultural heritage remains limited. Through a case study of the neoclassical marble sculpture Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii and its twenty-first-century re-emergence in 3D print, this chapter explores how 3D prints (the physical objects) and 3D printing (the technological process) may mediate art museum objects and affective presence. The chapter touches upon both challenges and potentials of 3D printing and discusses how affective presence, and 3D printing as an affective technology, emerge from material, temporal, and technological conditions. While 3D printed objects may be affective in ways that potentially trigger a spectrum of responses – from fascination and curiosity to disintrest and disengagement – the engagement potential of the material-temporal process of 3D printing stands out as unique. The process of 3D printing Nydia, the chapter finds, potentially engenders affects, forms of engagement, and modes of encounter that are simply unattainable vis-à-vis the marble sculpture in the onsite museum.
