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This study adopts an interpretivist phenomenological methodology using interviews and observation to explore professional sculptors' experiences with integrating 3D printing technologies into artistic practice. The aim is developing nuanced understanding of how digitally-driven fabrication impacts innovation and creative processes within contemporary sculpture. Background highlights 3D printing's transitional emergence as an increasingly accessible production technology with potential to transform sculpture by enabling new forms, customized fabrication, complex geometries, rapid iteration, and distributed participation. However, disruptive impacts interacting with traditional methods remain underexplored. The research addresses this knowledge gap through five guiding questions: (1) In what ways has 3D printing enabled new sculptural designs, forms, and materials? (2) How has it empowered transcendence of boundaries? (3) How has it enhanced creative expression and innovation capacity? (4) How has its interaction with manual techniques impacted sculpture? (5) What adoption challenges do sculptors face? Findings will enrich conceptualization of 3D printing's multifaceted impacts on established sculpture practice spanning social, creative, material, spatial, educational, sustainability, and cultural dimensions while highlighting ethical implications and policy needs. Outcomes aim to provide a reference for art scholars and technologists to responsibly shape progress respecting digital fabrication's democratizing promises but also sensitively retaining the cultural significance of historically grounded, manual artisanal skills facing disruption. This timely study intends filling an important research lacuna at the intersection of technology, tradition, and artistic innovation.
Alrashidi et al. (Sat,) studied this question.