As part of the weekend long London Design Festival, the V&A museum made an international splash inducting the world’s first 3D printed gun into the formal world of art and design.
According to the museum’s curator Kieran Long, “So far people have focused on the ability to print out things at home, such as toys, but this seems to be only part of it. In my view, the gun blew all that away. It showed the fuller implications of the dissemination of the means of production. Everybody is now potentially a manufacturer."
Although the museum has a Liberator weapon in their possession the V&A wasn’t able to have Wilson join them for their opening. Currently UK law requires Wilson to have a permit to export guns to the UK. Without this permit Wilson could have been arrested the moment he touched down at Heathrow.
For Long, that fact alone convinces him that the Liberator is a justifiable acquisition for the V&A museum. “It shows we are right at the cutting edge of this technology now and people are having to use their own moral compasses until the law catches up", said Long.
Whether the V&A was simply trying to manufacture attention for their upcoming exhibits or make a serious statement about contemporary design is anyone guess. However, one thing is for sure, 3D printing is dramatically disrupting the way we think about manufacturing goods.
Image Courtesy of the Guardian