I made an artwork in 2013-ish, where I attached an aluminum foil to a good DC motor. I mounted it from the ceiling with 2 stepper motors to control height and one orthogonal axis. The motor would unwind the foil by accelerating quickly in either direction (CW/CCW). By changing directions it would also create folds and stabilize the emerging shape: https://imgur.com/a/gaRKGtQ

I always imagined an additional stepper motor to cover an area like a delta 3D printer and liked to think about the difficulty in creating the 3D software, and the need to find a solution to simulate the unwinding-into-shape through some physical model.

EDIT: unwinding GIF here: https://imgur.com/a/VP3gEiv

Imgur is not working anymore in UK :(