I had a look around the recent exhibition held at Project Space Plus in the Art, Architecture and Design building, ‘British and European Receptions of China, 17th-21st Centuries’ as part of the Inaugural History and Heritage Symposium. One of the main parts I found the most interesting was a section related to 3D printing, this highlighted the restorative techniques used within reconstructing the Terracotta Army sculptures. You were able to touch and explore the objects, included were experiments and those where sections had gone slightly wrong and also one which allowed you to see the structural make-up inside. The objects were also accompanied by a video of the 3D printing process, effectively linking together the objects and their origin.

This related, for me, back to my perennial question ‘can objects exist as humans/can humans exist as other objects?’. These were 3D printed objects representing the human body, but in this process does the human aspect become lost? Are these now purely cold objects devoid of humanity?