David Kim

VITENSENTERET i TRONDHEIM 23. APRIL  – 31. MAI, 2026
Åpning: 23. april, kl.18.00
Kuratorer: Åshild Adsen, Martin Kulhawcsuk

Anatomy of Defense – Ribcage Prototype I [2024–]

Anatomy of Defense is an ongoing sculptural series that reimagines anatomy as engineered protection. The project begins with the ribcage, a structure already tasked with defending vital organs, and asks what happens when that “given” protection is treated as redesignable infrastructure. I produce digitally modelled, 3D-printed skeletal forms that remain legible as biology while drifting toward the visual and structural language of armor: thickened ribs, reinforced junctions, layered walls, and expanded frames that imply coverage, shielding, and redundancy.

The Ribcage Prototype I shown here intensifies this logic through two key moves: a widened shoulder architecture and a doubled internal rib structure. The expanded shoulder girdle reads as an upper defensive frame — a speculative adaptation that treats the collar and upper chest as a primary vulnerability. It suggests an anatomy that has learned to anticipate impact and exposure not only across the sternum and ribs but around entry points where protection is typically delegated to external gear. The internal “second ribcage” functions as a nested wall, creating a buffered zone around the organs and making protection visible as layered architecture. It evokes defense strategies where an outer surface absorbs the first strike while inner layers distribute force and reduce penetration. In the work, this is not presented as a functional prototype, but as a plausible artifact: a body that has internalized the logic of preparedness.

I develop each sculpture through a hybrid process of anatomical reference, AI-assisted form generation, computational modelling, and iterative fabrication. I begin with a base thoracic morphology and establish constraints that keep the form readable as a ribcage while allowing it to mutate toward infrastructural defense. AI-assisted modelling is used to produce rapid morphological variation — proposing unfamiliar transitions between bone, shell, and architectural brace. I treat these outputs as candidates, selecting those that hold a specific tension: they should feel structurally motivated and anatomically plausible, yet unmistakably engineered. The selected meshes are then refined through conventional 3D tools, where questions of wall thickness, stress points, surface logic, and printability become decisive. Fabrication is not a neutral final step but a structural test. The constraints of 3D printing — resolution, brittleness, bridging, and support needs — force redesign, and they sharpen the work’s final form language.

The project is situated in the present, not in distant science fiction. Across contemporary technology culture, “protection” is increasingly framed as a permanent condition: resilience, readiness, and hardening are treated as rational responses to a world defined by escalation. Anatomy of Defense treats this shift as an aesthetic and ethical problem. The sculptures borrow the authority of biomedical form, but they redirect it toward a defense imaginary where the body is redesigned for threat. They do not propose solutions; they hold a question in material form: what kinds of bodies become thinkable when protection is no longer external equipment, but an internal mandate?