3D MK Boat, 3D printing challenging society’s censorship

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Japanese obscenity laws are quite strict, especially concerning the representation of genitalia, in an apparently striking contradiction with the vast variety of underage porn that is somehow allowed. “3D MK Boat” is a conceptual work by the Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, aka Rokudenashiko. It consists in crowdfunding the 3D print of a regular size, usable kayak in the shape of her own vagina. This is part of a larger body of work, which often features this specific shape in small robots, dioramas and plenty of other objects, implicitly liberating it through enhancing the abstract geometry of nature vs. restrictive laws. Megumi was arrested on July 17th, for a classic crowdfunding scheme in which she sent 3D data of her vagina as a reward to those who donated 3000 Japanese yen or more. She was released a couple of days later. Here “creating” a 3D object is the instigation of a political act, with attendant gestures and the evolution of the object itself included in the meaning it embodies.

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