Industrial designer Luis Undritz has created a printer that produces images by projecting light onto algae and is on show as part of the Materialized exhibition at Milan design week.
Defined as "phytoprinting," the process works by using a white-coloured printer that is fitted with a round-shaped digital light processing laser projector (DLP.)
Phytoprinting creates images from algae using light
Undritz designed the printer with a round shape in order to differentiate it from 3D printers, which are generally square in form.
A negative black and white image is digitally fed into the printer, after which it is projected onto the surface of a small piece of material positioned below it. Currently, materials that can be printed on include textiles, ceramics and paper. The printer projects a negative black and white image onto phytoplankton
Each surface is lined with water, nutrients and a small portion of phytoplankton ? a type of microscopic marine algae.
Over a period of three to seven days, organisms begin to grow in the illuminated areas, eventually displaying a fully developed "living" image.
Undritz used materials such as fabric to print with the algaes
The phytoprinting process is influenced by screen printing, which uses traditional ink and a blocking stencil to create an image.
Undritz' phytoprinted experiments include green and dark-red images of cockroaches, shells and leaves, as well as a whimsical depiction of the Bauhaus building.
The project is...