Category: Uncategorised

Our initial iterations…

From our visit to the V&A we chose three objects, before narrowing our choice down to :

Architectural Spikes, Cast Electropolished Steel, Manufactured by Kent Stainless Ltd, Wexford, Ireland, 2014.

My Position:

David

1. Discuss how each group member understands this object based on their individual positions (refer again to the definition to the right). How do your positions differ from each others’? From the curators’? From the maker’s?

Coming from a country with a serious housing crisis, one that has made a predatory for-profit market from homelessness, my position relative to this object is defined by a certain level of disgust. Having had loved-ones experience homelessness (and let us be clear, that is what these spikes are designed to prevent), I find it hard to divorce the object from its context in the world outside of the museum. 

I feel the curators at he V&A did a good job at presenting the object in a factual manner which gave context without casting judgement. Seeing the object presented in such an isolated manner let me consider its design more carefully. This was helpful for thinking of ways to recontextualize it. 

I found Chinhwa’s position to be interesting and I liked the way she pulled back the lens on the object, casting it in terms of public and private space. I agree with a lot of what she said, and also find the increasing regulation of public spaces to be something worth examining. I feel such a trend underlines the object, its design, and its deployment, which can be conveyed in terms of market value over public need. This can be see in the position of the maker (‘if they don’t do it, someone else will), and the people the item affects who have no comparable value to the market.

2. What questions about this object and its contexts could you explore further as a group?

I would like to think of ways to subvert the object, both to parody it and to reverse its purpose. As a simple object, I feel it can easily be re-made and recontextualised into something more positive. I propose…

• Making a foam cushion replica of the spikes and block, that can be placed over the original spikes allowing people to sit comfortably.
• Public intervention by putting lots of spikes over a large area (basically reversing the way it works in real life).

Textural Iterations – Further experiments combining my illustration practice with found 3D models. Expanding upon my previous iterations, I explored UV mapping and splitting the mesh of my original object to work on it in isolation.

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Textural Iterations – Remixing models from the Lincoln Collection, using a custom map and frontal projection. A contrast between styles is created that highlights the formal qualities of the model’s existing textures.

The Collection Lincoln & Oliver Laric (2012) Lincoln 3D Scans. Available at: www.lincoln3dscans.co.uk (Accessed: 04/02/22).

Textural Iterations – Projection.

Using frontal projection, the maps moves across the surface the 3D object with the in-programme camera. This is useful for positioning smaller designs, which can then be affixed to said point on the model by generating a new UV map (using the new custom displacement map).

The Collection Lincoln & Oliver Laric (2012) Lincoln 3D Scans. Available at: www.lincoln3dscans.co.uk (Accessed: 04/02/22).

Moving forward I am taking a less contextual approach, and string to focus solely on the tool (in this case materials and textures in C4D) itself.

Textural Iterations – Custom Displacement Maps.

Applying custom displacement maps to pre-existing 3D models proposes an accessible entry point to 3D modelling and can be used to affect the mesh itself, distorting the underlying model. These maps are created with relative ease and can be quickly understood- the white portion raises from the surface, whilst the black recedes.

Man Wearing a Wreath (2017) Available at: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/man-wearing-a-wreath-1cebca66989a48b091b027e24c561f4c (Accessed: 25/02/22).

Writing Iteration 2

Experimenting with textures in 3D modelling software, questions of value and materiality arise which lie at the intersection of our hybrid cyber-physical world.  In understanding the role digital materials play within programs such as Cinema 4D, not to mention the wider internet, the concepts of Conditional Design can provide a useful analogue. Fundamentality, such a design philosophy operates by providing an instructional framework in which creativity may take place confined (but not oppressed by) certain parameters. The outcomes of these activities are in turn informed by, relate back to, but do not transgress the limits of their conditional environment. Such a framework is useful when understanding the discourse of creativity and iteration that underlines the avatars we use online. In simplistic terms, the 3D structure itself can be seen as a framework, or perhaps more aptly a canvas, which users can reinterpret, claim ownership of, or give meaning to via the application of digital materials. In this, ease of use is paramount – the sculpting and construction of 3D models remains in the realm of production and is not integrated in the many digital realms where users encounter such artefacts. The changing of a model’s appearance via innumerable digital skins is, in contrast, a large part of the fun in massively online multiplayer games such as Fortnite. With murmurings of the approaching metaverse reverberating throughout the internet, a time where one’s online ensemble will equal our real-world sartorial choices in importance may be looming. 

This proposition is, of course, underlined by the fact that these digital materials are fictional in nature – the stone face of a 3D sculpture is largely artificially-generated rather than the outcome of hammer and chisel. In the realm of 3D printing, the textures applied to a model which offer it a sense of verisimilitude (or not) can be difficult to render as polygons and physically translated. As a result the meaning any such textures may embody exists in immaterial terms. Perhaps this represents a subtle step in the shift from defining value in physical terms to that of digital aesthetics and decentralised markets.

Such questions play upon the contrasting creative discourses of uniqueness and iteration that underline the work of artists such as Oliver Laric. One could view this customization of materials upon a set digital framework (whether a well-crafted video game baddie, or a wobbly Silé na Gig) as supporting Laric’s emphasis on iteration as a driver of creative value. In this context, the rise of NFTs has proven an interesting phenomenon which straddles the line between these two modes of cultural discourse. These digital artefacts trade on a classical cultural rhetoric of scarcity and propriety whilst existing via a medium that engenders iteration and the free-flow of information. More interesting still is the fact that many popular NFTs are highly iterative in form, such as the Bored Ape series of tokens which are all variations drawn upon the same illustrative template.

Bibliography:

Bored Ape Yacht Club (no date) Bored Ape Yacht Club. Available at: https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/ (Accessed: 03/02/22).

Laric, O. (2010) Versions. 14/12/10. Available at: https://vimeo.com/17805188 (Accessed: 03/02/22).

Textural Iterations – Materiality and Immaterially / Uniqueness and Iteration.