Catherine Leutenegger’s long-term project New Artificiality investigates the emergence and advancement of 3D printing in a range of different, often surprising contexts. She takes us to China, where a company has built one of the world’s largest 3D printers and is now producing entire houses. The exhibition has as its centrepiece an immersive installation of monumental prints that portray these unlikely buildings. The prints have all been specially created by the artist in response to Photo Museum Ireland’s own unique layout.

Though still an experimental process, with questions around reliability and stability, as well as its ethical implications, 3D printing continues to move forward with seemingly limitless potential. Leutenegger explores the way that this technology has been adopted by science, demonstrating how the line between real and virtual have become increasingly blurred in a post-digital world. New Artificiality presents a view on some of these cutting-edge uses, confronting the quandary of how we humans will see ourselves when even body parts can be printed with the same ease and practicality as the elements of a building.

As part of the exhibition, a 3D-printed miniature of the artist herself will also be revealed to the public for the first time. Just 300 micrometres tall, it is one of the world’s smallest reproductions of a human form. Additionally, there is a selection from Leutenegger’s related series Welcome Home Baby. As with all her work, these incredibly realistic new-born simulations suggest something deeply uncanny in our evolving relationship to the objects that surround us.

Catherine Leutenegger (b. 1983) is a visual artist based in Switzerland. Her first book titled Hors-champ: Revealing Photographers’ Workspaces, was published by Infolio through the Manor Cultural Award 2006. In 2007 she took part of an artist residency program in New York and began her project depicting the demise of the Kodak empire as a result of the digital revolution. In March 2014, her second book Kodak City was published by Kehrer Verlag with essays by A.D Coleman, Urs Stahel and Joerg Bader. Leutenegger’s photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her work is also held in the collections of several public and private institutions.