These factors also immediately appeal to contemporary artists to use this fascinating technique as a new medium for artistic expression and cultural reinterpretation, for example, American artist Mark Dion’s Waiting for the Extraordinary (2013 CE), The Natural Sciences (2015 CE), and Leiden University Phantom Cabinet (2017 CE). Moreover, due to the digital nature of this technology, it becomes easy to manipulate and alter these material elements, making it possible to endlessly reproduce a diversity of versions of one single artwork. In contrast to other reproduction techniques (e.g., photography, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), handmade), 3D printing not only replicates the whole three-dimensional object including its color but also offers the ability to vary the texture of surfaces, translucency, and glossiness. As The Economist rightly predicted, it would be a matter of time before 3D printing would enter the art world. Nowadays, it is possible to mass produce a large variety of objects in different materials, complexities, shapes, and sizes: from boat propellers to nanochips as small as a 1μm from pizzas to pills, prosthetics and organs and from firearms to entire glass houses. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches”. Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750 CE - or the printing press in 1450 CE, or the transistor in 1950 CE - it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. “Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale.

In 2011 CE, the British paper The Economist announced that 3D printing would change the world:

3d printed paintings