Engineering Mythology: A Digital-Physical Framework for Culturally-Inspired Public Art
Abstract
Navagunjara Reborn: The Phoenix of Odisha was built for Burning Man 2025 as both a sculpture and an experiment-a fusion of myth, craft, and computation. This paper describes the digital-physical workflow developed for the project: a pipeline that linked digital sculpting, distributed fabrication by artisans in Odisha (India), modular structural optimization in the U.S., iterative feedback through photogrammetry and digital twins, and finally, one-shot full assembly at the art site in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The desert installation tested not just materials, but also systems of collaboration: between artisans and engineers, between myth and technology, between cultural specificity and global experimentation. We share the lessons learned in design, fabrication, and deployment and offer a framework for future interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of cultural heritage, STEAM education, and public art. In retrospect, this workflow can be read as a convergence of many knowledge systems-artisan practice, structural engineering, mythic narrative, and environmental constraint-rather than as execution of a single fixed blueprint.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.27801,
title = {Engineering Mythology: A Digital-Physical Framework for Culturally-Inspired Public Art},
author = {Jnaneshwar Das and Christopher Filkins and Rajesh Moharana and Ekadashi Barik and Bishweshwar Das and David Ayers and Christopher Skiba and Rodney Staggers and Mark Dill and Swig Miller and Daniel Tulberg and Patrick Smith and Seth Brink and Kyle Breen and Harish Anand and Ramon Arrowsmith},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.27801},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
19 pages, 28 figures, 4 tables