From snowy mountain camping trips to engineering conferences, his digitally mastered 14-foot dodecahedron is quite well traveled for a sculpture, said fine arts junior Scott Van Note, the sculpture's creator.
But according to Van Note, the most stimulating venture will be this weekend in an abandoned Nevada desert.
"This will be my first Burning Man experience," Van Note said.
Wearing an ASU T-shirt with the embroidered "engineering" scratched out with permanent marker and a makeshift elementary looking "ART" written underneath, the tall, but slender Van Note said he will be accompanying his perfectly symmetrical structure to the mysterious, art-crazed Burning Man Festival this weekend.
According to the Burning Man organization, trying to explain the festival to a person that has never been there is like trying to explain color to a blind person.
This annual event has grown rapidly since 1986.
It began with a little more then 40 people and now the spectacle attracts crowds of approximately 25,000 people to participate in a weeklong, cult-like community.
The Burning Man community is centered on self-expression through various styles of art.
Each year's participants and guests pay at least $150 to bring alive a theme that is decided by the festival founder, Larry Harvey.
This year's theme is "The Floating World."
Van Note said he never had plans to subject his structure to the alternative Burning Man oddity.
But this July, while displaying his sculpture, at the yearly Siggraph technology conference, Van Note said several people commented on his dodecahedron.
The precise mathematical configuration – which embodies a hint of blissful laziness with its five hammocks suspending from the structure's mid bars, captured the attention of a Burning Man organizer.
"One of the organizers of Burning Man's happy land saw my piece and told me I had to take to it the festival," said Van Note.
Once he found a ride to Burning Man, he said, it was settled he was going.
As an undergraduate art major, Van Note constructed the entire project – from the casting of the bronze, which act as the joints of the structure, to the initial computer design of the 12-sided geometrical shape called a dodecahedron – through ASU's PRISM program.
PRISM (Partnership for Research in Stereo Modeling) is an interdisciplinary program that combines five ASU colleges to promote research in areas of 3D modeling and acquisition.
While traditionally only computer science and engineering departments have had the resources for 3D modeling, PRISM brings this to artists, geologists, anthropologists and archeologists.
Through PRISM, these groups have an opportunity to research and experiment with the possibilities within high-dimensional computer modeling.
Van Note said as an art major the program has presented the option of transferring three-dimensional computer data into realistic art.
"The dodecahedron is a good example of what you can do with a computer, imagination, and a rapid prototyper," said Van Note.
PRISM Program Coordinator Tina Esquerra said Van Note has definitely caught the attention of the PRISM coalition.
"Scott has kept the entire program entertained with his project," Esquerra said.
In the future, the PRISM program will continue to expand but for Van Note his work with PRISM has come to an end.
"I spent a busy year constructing the dodecahedron, so I think I'll be taking a break from art and maybe get back into engineering, just to see if I can," said Van Note.
Reach the reporter at matthew.garcia3@asu.edu.
