Levi
Bloch
⇩
Artist
Designer
Engineer
Tinkerer
Provocateur
What’s My Deal?
By day, I’m a design engineer creating the next iPhone. By night, I create works centered around a moment of interaction. I look for contrasts, such as practical and impractical, sacred and profane, explicit and implicit. My goal is to make people stop and consider the objects they surround themselves with. Everything we touch was lovingly (or loathingly) created by an engineer, a designer, and a slew of factory workers in a 3rd world country. Amidst the material literacy crisis, I want people to rediscover the magic of every day objects through pausing to appreciate each little interaction.
Stuff I’ve Made:
As humanity is created in the image of the creator, each human act of creation embodies the divine.
In Abrahamic religion, as humanity is created in the image of the creator, each human act of creation embodies the divine. I wanted to create an artwork that packages that idea into something that can, every single day, remind us of that divine power we contain. I 3d printed Adam with his hand outstretched, from the painting Creation of Adam. I applied car repair and finishing techniques to create a marble-like finish. A wire embedded in a hollow channel that runs through the finger and arm connects to a capacitive touch sensor, which in turn toggles an ultracompact LED. When the subject touches Adam’s finger, Adam’s head, obscured by a lamp shade, lights up with the divine light of creation. Adam, in his natural form, is nude. However, if the owner prefers modesty, the piece comes with a sculpted, magnetically attaching fig leaf that perfectly covers his genitals with a satisfying click.
Materials: SLA Resin, Bondo, marble powder-infused epoxy, custom electronics
What if you could choose when to see the world through rose-tinted glasses? Or any other color, for that matter…
Eyeglasses are one of the earliest computers. They take in information about the world in the form of light, then reshape it to become more understandable to us. I wanted to add another dimension: color. At rest, these glasses take the form of a pair of flowers. The curved stem traces the contour of the face and around the ear. Each colored lens forms a petal. The screw that clamps the petal assembly together also serves as an axle, enabling each flower to spin. Hidden magnets form a detent mechanism, meaning that the lens clicks into place in the exact right position. 6 colors per eye mean 36 options of how to see the world. My favorite, of course, is rose-tinted.
Materials: 3d printed PLA, NdFeB magnets, laser-cut acrylic, and 2 screws I found on the ground
idk it’s a banana that’s a lamp
Sometimes I have really deep ideas. Sometimes I want to make a banana that is a lamp that you unpeel to turn on. I 3d modeled a banana based on the equation that governs the growth of bananas (logarithmic spiral). Then, I marked seams, UV unwrapped, printed, transferred to yellow faux leather, hand-sewed, then wrapped around a 3d printed shell of a banana based on the same 3d model. Magnets keep the banana peel closed, and also trigger the hall effect sensor to turn on the lamp once opened.
Materials: Yellow faux leather, white PLA, magnets, electronics
what if you made a vase made of peanut butter? wonder no more!
I woke up in the middle of the night with the image of a peanut butter vase seared into my vision. So, I spent a month modifying an Ender3 and created a low-budget, open-source, highly-modular paste extruder capable of printing peanut butter. To the right is an early attempt at a peanut butter vase, pictured moments before collapse. The highest I’ve every gotten was eight layers. I’m actively working on a new peanut butter formula with more structure, but that is TBD.
Materials: Borrowed Ender3, clean-ish syringe, lead screw, stepper motor, 3d printed brackets, and the most artificial peanut butter I could find
Sir, a second plane has struck the aromatherapy diffuser!
The line between provocative and insensitive is where the best art lives. Aromatherapy diffusers create peace and evoke happy memories. I wanted to turn this on its head to create a 9/11 memorial aromatherapy diffuser that evokes a sense of tragedy and despair. I modeled the scene in blender, then 3d printed as a shell designed to fit over a wooden/plastic base. A repurposed vape diffuses the fragrance: the scent of smoke and jet fuel.
Materials: PLA, cheap Chinese vape, fragrance oil.
FillMeIn: a more pleasurable way to send and receive texts
Are you blind, deaf, and very alone? Do you want each text you send or receive to give you a thrill of pleasure? I created FillMeIn while sheltering during the pandemic. A Personal Electric Network-Interfacing Stimulator (PENIS) connects via bluetooth to an app that intercepts incoming text messages, converts them to morse code, and vibrates them up inside you. To enable the ability to send texts, I developed a novel clench-detection system comprising a force-sensitive resistor integrated between a compliant membrane and rigid chassis. This system is remarkably high-fidelity and can differentiate between insertion, light clench, and hard clench. Please contact me directly for images if interested.
Materials: Platinum-cure silicone, force sensitive resistor, 3d-printed ABS, Arduino Nano 33 BLE
the ritual is the receptacle: the ultralight titanium gongfu tea set
I’m always looking to combine the practical and impractical. As an avid backpacker, every gram counts, and I find myself doing unspeakable things to save weight (e.g. cutting the handle off of a toothbrush). I wanted a way to experience the luxury and serenity of making tea. All existing backpacking tea gear focus on the final product: the tea. Equally important, though, is the actual process of making tea. To enable a gongfu tea ceremony on the go, I made the set out of titanium. I wanted decorations that evoke the original tea set this was based on, so I engraved them on a rotary laser. The entire set weighs in at just 60g.
Materials: Sandblasted and laser-engraved double-walled titanium
