Fragments Proximity, 2024 – Jeewi Lee x Phillip C. Reiner

"Fragments Proximity" is a set of three large-scale sculptures. Each is a single grain of sand in the same material, enlarged 600 to 850 times. The scale turns microscopic grains into room-scale objects; surface curves and crevices carry the grain's particularity and geological history. The project treats sand as a material that carries geological memory and place-specific associations. Sand is abundant globally but under pressure from construction and digital-industry demand. Lee works with detritus as embodied memory; Reiner contributes parametric work based on natural phenomena described by mathematical principles. The collaboration uses mathematical precision to expose structure and history in single grains.

Research:
Each sculpture starts with one grain scanned by Zeiss X-ray microscopy (nano-CT). The process captures surface topology and internal density at micron resolution. Data moves from physical grain to DICOM image stack, then to 3D geometry via surface reconstruction. ProtoCtrl handles mesh processing and parametric geometry for 3D printing at monumental scale (600-850x). The workflow engages the Sorites paradox by fixing a single grain as the unit of reconstruction. Output is hyper-realistic reconstruction at a scale where microscopic detail becomes tactile.