The blurry boundary between liquid and solid is ripe for exploration in both engineering and art, says Lauren Dreier, a graduate student in architecture who is doing her dissertation research in Princeton’s engineering school.

Dreier is also a practicing artist who has worked in media including textiles and robotics. Her research is advised by associate professors Andrej Košmrlj in mechanical and aerospace engineering and Pierre-Thomas Brun in chemical and biological engineering. Brun, who has forged several collaborations with artists, works with polymers that transition between liquid and solid. His lab has developed a new way to 3D print soft materials and a method that uses bubbles to cast components for soft robots.

Last year, Dreier used similar materials and extrusion methods to create an art piece called “Rope Piece (deluge).” Other members of the Brun lab took part in conceptualizing, planning and assembling the piece, whose base is a 15-foot-long piece of sheer organza fabric attached to the wall at eye level. At the top is a series of parallel silicone strands, which give way to ever-wavier and thicker threads, ending on the floor as a layered mass of coils evoking a flood of fluid that has become solid. Dreier used mathematical simulations to create a template for the strands based on the natural behaviors of viscous fluids.

The piece, along with a smaller work comprised of lace-like extruded coils, was displayed at The Leonardo Museum in Salt Lake City as part of the American Physical Society’s Traveling Gallery of Fluid Motion, a showcase of works inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of fluid dynamics and flight. 

Da Vinci “was really curious about fluids that tend toward turbulence” and chaos, said Dreier. This fascination was exemplified by a series of “deluge” drawings depicting apocalyptic flooding, which da Vinci completed in the years just before his death in 1519. 

“I have a tendency in my art practice to want to invert things, kind of take things apart as I understand them and maybe turn them upside down, or tap on the shell a little bit,” said Dreier. “One reason I’ve really liked working in [Brun’s] group is that I think he’s always been coming from that curiosity-driven place. And I think that sort of thing can only be good for our discipline.”