2∙ Digital bodies¶

27th September to 4th October 2022

Update

September, 2022
April, 2023
June, 2023

Assignments

Include some inspirations: research on artists or projects that work with the human body
Document the use of 3D scanner and softwares to acquire a 3D model
Document the process of repairing and/or manipulating a 3D mesh and slicing it
Create my ready to cut file for laser cutting, learn how to use the laser cutter and document the workflow and upload your 3D and 2D files
Learn about the fab lab processes, booking system, usage, machine demos, tools and safety rules. Build and/or assemble my mannequin, create a stop motion assembling it or stepped process

Ressources of the week

Research & Ideation¶

This week we are focusing on the body as a canvas of the tailor. Like the canvas for the painter, it's like a white page. We will explore Rhino, make human for 3D modelling, Scanect and Kinect for 3D scanning, and the Lasercutter for computational cutting and engraving.

We discovering different way to use 3D.

From scratch
To scan it
Download it
Generative by data

My inspirations began with what the body evoked in me. My first feeling turned to the breaks, accidents blockages, mental health in which life can take us. In same how our perception of him is possible to change and how we learn about ourself, emotions finding keys to advance.

Following the first interest with the body scar, I decided to accentue this and creating a person with in the external view a strange proportions, no gender. Using the movement of running and keep only the upper body. The others part are blocked and did no movement. This representation show for me the different state when we are sick. We are not really full of connect to our body, like having a fracture of who I am, who I would like to be, how the people show us, how I really feel inside, what I need for keep going. Shadow of ourself.

Using glue on this project is interpretation when you feel completely stuck but finally there always a solution for remove, change it. This feel me sometimes we need help to others for moving blocking part, to accepting them, to apaising them and that they stop to controlling us.

References & Inspiration¶

Syncrodogs ¶

Duo of Art Directors and photographers from Ukraine since 2008, they produced one of the serie call "Supernatural" : “'Supernatural' project artistic duo recreated visions they managed to see while experimenting with meditation and lucid dreaming techniques, used their own constructed images as a vehicle for erasing the line between the real and the illusive, between the natural and the artificial, between the evident and the unknown, uncovering edges of their own subconscious, using intuition as their main guide.

Its a never-ending self-exploration of two artists in context of the unknown. It deals with intuition, subconscious, natural phenomena, some human essence, which is unable to be explained by science, aiming to depart from what is usual or mundane. The project strives to convey artist’s personal insightful sublime experience caused by the natural environment, erasing a line between the real and the imagined.”

William Watkins Emotional Shell¶

William Watkins is a french generative artist based in Lyon, he made the series Emotional Shell: "The feeling of being human – with all of its intricate hopes, struggles, and fleeting emotions – seems so unique that we assume artificial intelligence could never replicate our experience. And while we devise systems for solving unfathomably complex problems, generating algorithmic creativity, and unlocking regenerative biological possibilities, we simultaneously cling to the power and originality of emotional feeling – believing it to be the irreplaceable source of what makes us human.

If the body is our shell for emotion and soul, can an artificial humanoid be another vessel for these thoughts and feelings – for human essence itself? If our ‘soul’ is the last stand between us and the machines, what happens when the soul becomes transferable? That we may see answers to these questions looks more real every year, and is perhaps a little frightening.

Emotional Shell uses introspective portraits of future selves to question what it means to be human, when the people around us are no longer human."

Source

Lucy McRae, Solitary Survival Raft¶

Artist Lucy McRae leads a multi disciplinary, art-research studio investigating the impact future technologies have on human evolution.

Process and workflow¶

First, with the help of Laora, I would like to scan the part of my body where I had some scar with the skanect. Finally I didn't use it for my final work. I chose to interpret the body with Make Human software. We had lot of fun with Lauriane trying to create different persons and faces, whanging the emotions on them.

Tools & Materials¶

Material	Details
Software	MakeHuman, Skanect, Rhino, Slicer
Tools	Scalpel,cardboard, cutting board, pencil, glue
Machine	Laser cutting R400, Rayjet 100 watt glass tube machine, Cutting table size 1030x 630mm
Laptop	MAC, Windows with Kinect XBOX 360
Fabrication files	Cutting files in pdf

1- Create in MakeHuman or scan your body.¶

2- Do modifications and Export file in Rhino.¶

File > Import

For cutting a part :¶

Command LINE
Command Mesh Trim
- Select the line
- Enter
- Select the part of the object you want to cut

Command CAP for closed the part.

My modifications on Rhino focused on the cutting and assembly of these two movements which are unknown to each other. How the same body can be blocked. As if it was foreign to itself.

3- Open, Prepare, Export file in Slicer¶

I made the mistake of not keeping my Slicer file at this stage.

I choose to use this stacked slices for having a texture and full of the part. Aswell for my body when I was trying others construction technique was pretty bad with lot of red.

4- Open, Clean, Export in pdf your file in Rhino.¶

In Rhino change the color for being adapt to the laser cutting settings for cut correctly. Full red or blue 255. It's depends of the settings for graving or not. Export in PDF, A0.

describe what you see in this image

5- Cutting material in the good size adapted to the cutting laser.¶

6- Preparing and cutting in Inskape and work with the cutting laser.¶

When importing, I forgot to change the format of my file on Inskape. Then on the laser cutter software, to activate the "eye" to verify that my placement was correct.

My mistakes :