Gallery: At This Spa, Watch 3-D Printers Create a City While You Soak in the Tub
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[Jonathan Schipper](http://oppositionart.com/) latest project, called *Detritus*, is a creepy installation where a custom built, room-sized 3-D printer crafts a miniature world in decay. Jonathan Schipper
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Set in a reclaimed [boiler room](http://www.pierogi2000.com/about/the-boiler/) turned gallery space, the robot is suspended from the 40 foot ceilings and deposits a specially formulated saline paste onto a 12 ton desert of salt. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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The free-hanging robot constructs a desolate landscape filled with ruined buildings, trashed tires, and discarded objects. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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Patrons watch the tableau take shape from the comfy confines of a hot tub. Over the course of a soak, the robotic print head traverses the room constructing the tiny city before their eyes, but once the show is over soaked spectators exit the tub and are forced to walk over the landscape, destroying it like gallery-going Godzillas. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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*Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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The exhibit was partially inspired by a geology lecture where the speaker described a theoretical film shot at the rate of one frame per year. Viewers would see mountains and oceans move, but depending on the time of year, might not see a single person or even leaves on trees. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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*Detritus* is a fast-forwarded vision of what the world might look like without us. Schipper isn't hoping for a catastrophic meteor strike to make his vision a reality, just to foster a bit more sympathy for the planet's less dominant inhabitants. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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*Detritus* works on a geological time scale, but the particulars were shaped by Schipper's upbringing. Growing up in Chico, California in the 1970s he saw orchards become outlet malls at an alarming pace, sometimes from the vantage point of a hot tub at his family's home. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
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"The piece has furthered my respect for the the forces of engineering and entropy," says Schipper. *Photo: Jonathan Schipper*
