Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts is hosting a ‘make{r}evolution’

In what may have been a foreseeable and nonetheless exciting adoption, the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (DCCA) is fully embracing 3D printing and robotics.
And they’re doing it Thursday, April 23 during a big fundraising celebration called make{r}evolution.
The event will feature a “robot scrimmage” from middle school robotics team Flaming Phoenix, a 3D photo-booth demo from Sovereign Air, an exhibition of 3D printing pens and various goodies from roving makerspace Barrel of Makers and much, much more.

The hope is that people will look at the DCCA as more than an exhibiting venue, but a place that is really looking to dig and explore what these technologies mean in our visual lives.

This is all a part of the DCCA Board of Directors’ new strategic plan, which was developed last year. “They found in the focus groups that there’s a real desire within the community, but also within the field as a whole, for a broadening of what a venue like this should offer,” said DCCA Executive Director John Shipman. “They broadened it to be a center that has a mission to focus on contemporary arts, design and technology.”
Shipman said the art on exhibition will run the gamut as far as technology and visual arts are concerned. There will be work from artists and physicists and a lot of 3D printing — interactive 3D printing, art that incorporates 3D printing and work built entirely by 3D printers.
“The hope is that people will look at the DCCA as more than an exhibiting venue, but a place that is really looking to dig and explore what these technologies mean in our visual lives,” Shipman said.
That, he said, is what make{r}evolution will really be about: a way to get this technology in people’s hands.
Some emerging technologies, he said, are hard to wrap your mind around until you are able to physically see and interact with it.
“They can see it, start connecting the dots for themselves as to what it may mean in their own artistic lives, their business lives, their manufacturing lives — and figure out how it incorporates into what they want to do,” Shipman said.
Ticket prices differ for members, non-members and students. Shipman said that as the DCCA beefs up its resources, programming like this could be extended out into the community — specifically, to schools.
“This is just the beginning,” he said. “This is a part of our programming that we really want to expand and see how it fits into our idea of the DCCA not just being a venue that people come to, but see what we can do out in the community.”