PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Laurie Anderson joins the growing number of artists creating original work on the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D printer, with her latest exhibit, “Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo.” The multimedia exhibition is running now through November 19th at the Fabric Workshop & Museum in Philadelphia.

MakerBot Industries performed a 3D scan on a clay model of Laurie Anderson's dog Lola, creating a virtual 3D object. From this object, MakerBot printed out over twenty plastic models of the scan using the Thing-O-Matic, MakerBot’s affordable desktop 3D printer. The pack of plastic dogs is on display in the FWM lobby, alongside a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic.

Other artists who have employed MakerBots in their pieces include Micah Ganske, Takeshi Murata, Marius Waltz, and Kyle McDonald. Recently praised by The Wall Street Journal as the “latest hit on the art fair circuit,” MakerBot Industries’ Artist in Residence program has given all types of artists—from painters to animators— the chance to work within a new creative medium.

MakerBot Industries has also partnered with The New Museum Store in NYC for a 3D design challenge, aiming to push the concept of the “derivative,” by improving on established design conventions. The creator of the most innovative design will win a Thing-O-Matic kit, a deluxe membership to the New Museum and a chance to have their design on display in the New Museum's front window.

MakerBot Industries is a company founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach Smith producing an open source 3D printer to democratize manufacturing. The MakerBot works like a robotic hot glue gun: ABS (the same plastic used to make Lego) or biodegradable PLA thermoplastic goes into the MakerBot as filament and is heated to a controlled temperature. The melted plastic is then pushed through the nozzle in a thin stream, building an object layer by layer.

MakerBot Industries was named one of the top 20 startups in NYC, and has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, Make: Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, The Financial Times, NPR, The Economist, and others.

Recognized as a seminal artist of our time, Laurie Anderson (b. 1947 Chicago, IL) emerged in downtown New York in the 1970s—a period of expression in opposition to political, economical, and social conventions—performing and exhibiting her works in alternative art settings. Over the course of thirty years, Anderson has distinguished herself as a multifaceted artist, who addresses life, politics, social issues, and technology through her use of spoken word and storytelling. In her theatrical performance, she integrates projected film and video, photography, graphics, sculpture, and electronic and instrumental music.