A trip through 3D scans of Zurich with music of Niki Reiser.
On behalf of the Zurich Film Foundation for the Zurich Film Award, Cadrage.
The work has been shown as a 360° projection.
Creating A Painting – Machine Learning and The Next Rembrandt
The new portrait is the product of 18 months of analysis of 346 paintings and 150 gigabytes of digitally rendered graphics.
Everything about the painting — from the subject matter (a Caucasian man between the age of 30 and 40) to his clothes (black, wide-brimmed hat, black shirt and white collar), facial hair (small mustache and goatee) and even the way his face is positioned (facing right) — was distilled from Rembrandt’s body of work.
We created a height map using two different algorithms that found texture patterns of canvas surfaces and layers of paint. That information was transformed into height data, allowing us to mimic the brushstrokes used by Rembrandt.
We then used an elevated printing technique on a 3D printer that output multiple layers of paint-based UV ink. The final height map determined how much ink was released onto the canvas during each layer of the printing process. In the end, we printed thirteen layers of ink, one on top of the other, to create a painting texture true to Rembrandt’s style.
3D Scanning, Artifacts, Hoaxes & an Unintended Look at the Issue of Digital Provenance
“The Other Nefertiti” was an artistic intervention by Jan Nikolai Nelles and Nora Al- Badri done in 2015. “With the data leak as a part of this counter-narrative within our investigative practice, we want to activate the artifact, to inspire a critical re-assessment of today’s conditions and to overcome the colonial notion of possession in Germany’s museums”. With regard to the notion of belonging and possession of material objects of other cultures, the artist’s intention is to make cultural objects publicly accessible and to promote a contemporary and critical approach on how the “Global North“ deals with heritage and the representation of “the Other”. “We should tell stories of entanglement and Nefertiti is a great case to start with to tell stories from very different angles and to see how they intertwine.“
The original intervention work by the artist duo Jan Nikolai Nelles and Nora Al- Badri turns out now to most likely be a hoax. Not the intervention itself or the concept the artists were attempting (and have) conveyed through the work, but the end result. The 3D scan at the heart of the issue was released as part of the protest over the German museum’s possession of the historic and cultural artifact, and the Egyptian Museum’s (and other similar institutions) hoarding of valuable 3D data. It seems now that the scan was most likely no produced out of the artist intervention as the work originally suggested. At the moment there is no accusation that the artists faked the intervention, more that whoever provided the technical knowledge to execute their concept provided a stolen copy of the Egyptian museum’s own high-resolution 3D scan (originally produced by TrigonArt) of the sculpture and not one that was captured during the event.
The original concept and execution and the resulting debacle has brought to light a greater issue about the importance of provenance in an age of digitization and the role museum’s can and should play in providing authoritative context to information as the public puts this data to use. Which brings me to the original purpose of this post, and the wonderful piece published by Cosmo Wenman on this very issue.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, digitizing artwork radically increases the importance of provenance—where artifacts and information come from, who controlled it, and who edited it. Museums are in the best position to produce and publish 3D data of their works and provide authoritative context and commentary about the work, the art, the data, and what it means. I know from first-hand experience that people want this data, and want to put it to use, and as I explained to LACMA in 2014, they will get it, one way or another. When museums refuse to provide it, the public is left in the dark and is open to having bogus or uncertain data foisted upon it.
Museums should not be repositories of secret knowledge, but unfortunately, as I’ve noted elsewhere, Neues is not alone in keeping their scan data to themselves. There are many influential museums, universities, and private collections that have extremely high quality 3D data of important works, but they are not sharing that data with the public.
– Cosmo Wenman
Which brings us back to the unintended consequences of this artistic intervention, and the value 3D models of historic artifacts can have on the creation of new work.
I’m entirely sympathetic to the underlying cause of liberating artwork and making it available to everyone. I believe that with 3D scanning and 3D printing, private collectors and museums have an unprecedented opportunity to recast themselves as living engines of cultural creation. They can digitize their three dimensional collections and project them outward into the public realm to be adapted, multiplied, and remixed, and they should do this because the best place to celebrate great art is in a vibrant, lively, and anarchic popular culture. The world’s back catalog of art should be set free to run wild in our visual and tactile landscape, and whether it turns up lit in pixels on our screens, rematerialized in our living rooms, or embedded in our architecture or clothing, it’s all to the good.
– Cosmo Wenman
Distorted and Glorified Memories – Memory Lane
The project ‘Memory Lane’ consists of a series of sculptures and audio-visual works reproducing relevant places to the childhood of the two authors. 3D scanning and rendering blend the actual environments with their virtual replicas. The final results diverge from the original models. Some elements appear detached, defined and prominent. Others fade, merge with one another; the light behaves unnaturally, what is solid gets intangible, physical laws are subverted. It all allows the typical atmosphere of fantasy or even science-fiction to set in, leading us into realising we are not facing a mere depiction of actual places but of distorted and glorified memories.
By reproducing the sceneries of the authors’ childhood games, ‘Memory Lane’ recovers the pleasure and emotions of those past moments. Ultimately it was their very evocative character that led the authors to artistic creativity later on in life.
Scanning Leonardo’s Last Supper
Video realized by ScanLAB showing the data they recorded; including the back of the wall on which the Last Supper is painted.
Replicants – Glitch Portraits by Lorna Barnshaw
Replicants is a series of full-color 3D printed portraits by digital artist Lorna Barnshaw. Each face was created using a different application or piece of software (Maxon Cinema 4D, 123d Catch, ZEdit, Cubify, Viuscan). The result of each piece is a less a portrait of a person as much as it a portrait of the material and process. Barnshaw did little to manipulate the final pieces and let the flaws in the technique speak for themselves.
I interferred with the software as little as posisble, comparing the digital attempts at replicating reality. The result is then 3D printed, bringing the digital simulacrums into the physical world.
– Lorna Barnshaw
The photogrammetry, the pixelation of the digital image, the sandstone texture of the 3d print and glitches create fascinating results.