About

Hybrid MaTter: Sustainable Art Practices through DIY 3D Printing with Living Substrate

Hybrid Matter investigates sustainable art practices through the lens of de/industrialization, local additive manufacturing, and the creation of hybrid spaces shaped by “intermatter” interactions. The project engages with the specific histories, ecologies, and futures of its host sites through a series of installations and participatory workshops. At its core, Hybrid Matter explores the thresholds between order and chaos, living and nonliving, through the evolving form of living sculpture.

The primary tool of the project is the MycoPrinter—a DIY, open-source 3D printer built entirely from reclaimed components and designed to print with biodegradable substrates. Once extruded, these substrates are inoculated with fungi, plants, and bacteria, fusing additive manufacturing with biological growth to produce sculptures that are simultaneously designed, accidental, and alive.

By intentionally disrupting the “precision imperative” of traditional 3D printing, Hybrid Matter embraces randomness, error, and glitch as generative forces. Each artwork begins with human intent (designing and preparing the substrate), is shaped by the machine’s idiosyncrasies (layered mistakes, interruptions, and mechanical unpredictability), and ultimately transformed by nonhuman collaborators—living organisms that grow, metabolize, and alter the work over time. The resulting sculptures are unique, emergent artifacts that reflect collaboration across species and systems.

Beyond installation, Hybrid Matter offers workshops that invite the public to experiment with sustainable art practices rooted in CARE—care for materials, care for community, care for nonhuman life, and care for future ecologies. Participants learn hands-on methods for working with living materials, open-source technologies, and regenerative design approaches, gaining tools to imagine art-making beyond extractive and industrial paradigms.