A little virtual tour of the online exhibition THIS IS NOT A SHOW, showcasing the work of over 50 working class artists and creatives from the Working Class Creatives Database at Pineapple Black Arts, with a brief look at my work included in the show. ‘ππ₯π¦π° π¦π° π«π¬π± π π°π₯π¬π΄. ππ₯π¦π° π¦π° π π°π±ππ±π’πͺπ’π«π± π¬π£ π¦π«π±π’π«π±.β With workingclasscreativesdatabase.co.uk/ β‘οΈlaunched on pineappleblack.co.uk/index.php/pbvarts/β‘οΈ
οΏ½The Working Class Creatives Database is a platform highlighting the work of people who are working class, giving a supporting structure to people that are involved in the arts.
οΏ½As of 2020, only 16% of the workforce in creative industries identify as being from working-class backgrounds. By creating a platform for working-class creatives this begins to readdress these issues within the sector through creating a voice for those that are otherwise outsiders.
Special thanks to @pineappleblackarts for giving us a virtual space and @highbrowart for the poster design.
Some screenshots of my work in the show- “In The River: Digital Fragments”, the five 3D scanned bones made during my MA using Einscan and Meshmixer.
I mentioned this new 3D scanning available in the 3D workshop briefly in my weekly summary post, but I thought I should probably do a separate post for it, as it is a really exciting piece of kit that I have learnt to use.
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The Einscan is a piece of kit and accompanying software for 3D scanning, which Jonathan (tutor) mentioned was now available for use in the 3D workshop during our one to one tutorial. You start by setting up the software and kit, by calibrating it- you put the calibration stand onto the turntable, and follow the instructions on the software- rotating the removable board as shown on screen so that the dots align. You rotate the board three times, and in-between each one the turntable rotates it 360 degrees to calibrate the camera. Jonathan (technician) explained that the scanner builds the 3D model by sending out beams of light across the object- the way the light bends around the object is then captured and is used to build the model. Once it was calibrated we used a glue gun to attach the bone to a clear plastic rod embedded in a small piece of wood, much like when I 3D scanned with the iPad and with the photogrammetry- the rod acting as a support. Most of the bones had to be scanned twice, with the bone moved into a different position and glued before being scanned the second time. Jonathan then showed me how to match the two scans up on the software to produce the finished model. (he showed me this on Thursday last week, which is why I ended up with the mutant bone scan, as I didn’t know how to match the two scans up).
I still have one more bone to scan, and possibly one to redo, but I have made really quick progress with this and I’m really happy with how the scans are coming out! As you can see from the video, the details and texture are being picked up much better than they were with the iPad, although not quite as well as the photogrammetry- however this has a much higher success rate and is much faster, so I think the prints I get from these scans will probably be the final ones I put in the show, which is very exciting! I really want to play with these scans on blender- maybe animating them in some way, and I would also like to play around with scale if I have time- printing them as small as possible, and as large as possible. If I have time for these experiments, and if they go well, I am considering applying for the Selected Showcase at our end of year show- I envision displaying a short animation of the digital 3D models, or perhaps a few still images, alongside some huge and tiny 3D prints of the bones.
To Do:
– Scan the last bone
– clean the scans up on Meshmixer
– send the scans to print
After my first attempt editing an iPad scan of my bone didn’t go so well (you could see where I dragged the mesh, and this was visible on the 3D print) I was a bit hesitant to try again. This video was originally a 5 and half min screen cap of some playing around with another bone scan, to get a feel for the tools and how the programme works, which I sped up to 2 mins. You can see me trying different tools and playing with softening the shape, which I didn’t end up keeping.
This screenshot shows the bone before any editing was done- the raw scan.
I feel a little more confident to use Meshmixer now, and I plan on cleaning the rest of the iPad bone scans up, just to see how the shapes have turned out.
Took moulds from foundry down to Ceramics studio and started testing them out
The clay is much softer than anticipated- I am used to more solid materials such as the wax, so de-moulding has proven more difficult- the clay loses shape as soon as you try to pull it out of the moulds
I found leaving the clay in the moulds to dry a little helped, but not much
I only managed to get one clay bone finished; I had to do a lot more work to it than I was used to doing with the wax to get it to look right, using the real bone for reference
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I also popped into the 3D workshop to chat about the new scanner with the technician, Jonathan, and ended up doing a scan of one of my bones then and there
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Tuesday 04/06/19
I booked out the photography studio last week for this morning, to photograph all my sculptures so far, with the help of Richard, the technician
Ended up coming back after lunch and staying there til 3.30ish, as some pieces proved trickier to photograph
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I took 360 pics of all the pieces except for the two brick casts and the bronze casts, and I plan to animate them into little gifs for my website
I learnt a lot about how to light different shapes and materials, which I hope I can try to mimic at home with a flexible desk lamp, fabric, and a white table or sheet- Richard definitely taught me that you don’t always need the fancy equipment available at uni
Didn’t get time to go to ceramics again, as planned, so I went to the 3D workshop to do more 3D scans instead
I ended up with a few fixable scans, and one mutant scan- I scanned it twice at two different angles, but the software stitched it together wrong, giving me a mutant bone
Wednesday 05/06/19
Made progress on remaking my Symposium video (I lost the entire thing because the programme I was using crashed)
Had to go to work in the evening
Thursday 06/06/19
Morning group tutorial- we discussed show details and I am happy with the space I have been allocated
Edited one of the iPad bone scans and sent it to print
Made some more progress on remaking the symposium video
Friday 07/06/19
Visited Jonathan in 3D and scanned the bones that went wrong on Tuesday- he showed me how to do multiple scans and match them up to get a better 3D model
I have one bone left to scan- I just need to do that and clean up the scans on MeshMixer and they will be ready to 3D print
The scans using the iPad didn’t pick up much detail, but captured the shape of the bone quite well- I then used Meshmixer to try and get rid of the pen I used to prop up the bone, which was harder than I expected- cutting it off was the easy part, but I struggled to figure out how to seal up the hole left in the mesh. I haven’t shown this part in the video, as I forgot to record it, but you can see on the 3D print where I dragged the mesh across in an attempt to seal up the hole, so I definitely need more practice with this! Overall though I am very happy with how the print came out, for a first attempt I think I did a good job, and going forwards I know I need to practice messing around on MeshMixer to make my other 3D scans and prints look better!
I am planning on scanning the rest with the iPad as well, to see what they come out like, and to act as a back up in case I can’t get them to work with photogrammetry in time.
The set up for photogrammetry is the same as for scanning with an iPad, as you can see from the set up photos above. Much like the iPad you need to capture a full 360 of the object you are scanning, however the process takes longer, and is harder to get right. You have to take around 50 images of the object, moving very slowly around it as you photograph, making sure to keep the camera the same distance from the object and the same angle as you do it. These photos then get uploaded into a programme called Autodesk Recap Photo, which stitches your photos into a 3D model.
The images included above are of one of the first attempts to scan one of the bones using this technique- unfortunately the back of the bone didn’t come out.
the video above shows what I mean better- although the detail has been captured beautifully, only half of the bone has come out as a 3D model. I tried a few times with no more success than that, and the software takes a long time to make the model only to find out that it hasn’t worked. I might need to find another method of 3D scanning, as the iPad scans lack the detail that I want, but photogrammetry is proving to be really difficult!
This video is of the Digital Media Technician Adamina demonstrating how to use the 3D scanning software and piece of kit for an iPad. This is one of the more basic 3D scanning techniques available, and as you can see the scan hasn’t picked up the details of the bone, only the rough shapes.
The next step for me is to install a free programme called MeshMixer and cut off the pen, as it came up in the scan, and seal up the piece. Then it will be ready to be 3D printed on Monday next week.
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These photos show the set up in the studio, including white backdrop, plinth, and lighting set up. We suspended the bone from nylon wire so that we could scan the whole object, and used a pen and blueback underneath it for stability- we needed it to be still for the scanning to work.
Next Steps:
download MeshMixer and clean up the scan for printing
meet with Adamina next Monday (I have booked an appointment with her) and send the scan to print
hopefully next week we will also experiment with photogrammetry, which she mentions in the video. This process is a bit more lengthy and complicated- I will have to borrow a camera and lens from uni, and photograph the object multiple times from multiple angles, and then upload these photos to a specialist programme that stitches everything together to create a 3D model. This will take a fair bit of time, and I might still need to work into the objects on the software to clean them up before we can send them to the 3D printer
started back in the late 90’s researching digital art and its origins
Frank Popper
Cold war period and how types of computer developed during this period
CACHE Project Archive
Computer Art Society
John Lansdown
using computers for architecture, performance, animation, ect
the transference from computers being large and only used by limited people to being smaller and in the home
shifts in technology and culture
early digital media doesn’t survive very well- mostly survives on paper, due toΒ changes in formats and storage devices, and their fragility
digital dark age came about due to these changes
emulating old systems to archive older online/digital materials
is everything worth saving, if we could save everything?
Ideas Before Their Time, 2010
Brian Peffin-Smith – big in the digital art scene
is there a digital aesthetic? How can it be defined?
an interchange between you and the machine/programme
what is the computers most important contribution to visual arts?
can the computer become a creative agent in its own right?
inter connectivity of artists and makers via the internet
features and “intelligent” programming can shape and try to dictate what you are creating- you can turn it off a lot of the time, but it can still help or hinder the creator
the urge to fill empty spaces with imagery- colonising new spaces, such as the web
Frieder Nake
art as a commodity
Computer Graphics and Computer Art– Herbert Franke
the shift from the web being democratic and open to becoming heavily monetised and heavily marketed
Warhol- works for Commodore
why use modern technology in order to generate the most traditional formats of the art world? i.e. printing and framing digital art and putting it on the wall
Gilbert and George- Ginko Pictures, 2005
“Duchamp Land” and “Turing Land“
using digital mediums as another form of artistic expression
KAT OUTTEN 