2. Digital Bodies¶

At this point, we are in week two and our second assignment is called DIGITAL BODIES, my brain is less confused and I can see much clearer the type of documentation I want to map out. I’m really into writing, specifically, script writing so I made a "script" of what my documentation would look like, this HELPED A LOT because I found my work flow; basically I worked outside of Gitlab and just copy/paste into Git when I was ready. FIND YOUR WORK FLOW: understand the logic behind your processes and I promise they will run by themselves through you. Anastasia´s lecture was very inspiring, it had great references and the list with the different tools we could use was extremely handy and democratic.

link of lecture and pdf here

Inspiration¶

The following references from Anastasia´s lecture definitely motivated the idea I wanted to carry out because I have always been fascinated by the Non-Finito concept originated by Michel Angelo. The merge of classical art and contemporary has also fascinated me for a while now as I believe you get the best of both worlds.

¨Quayola has released the latest iteration of his ongoing Captives series, Captives #B04, which sees the artist's interpretation of Michelangelo’s unfinished series Prigioni (1513-1534) and the Renaissance artist's technique of "non-finite.¨

Read complete article on Quayola here

Exploring new Tools¶

Secondly, we learned to use HandyScan just to explore one of the tools we could use for the assignment.

The HandySCAN 3D™ laser scanner is a handheld 3D scanner ideal for scanning parts ranging from the size of a golf ball to the size of a small car. It is a great tool for both reverse engineering (scan-to-CAD) and inspection workflows. The HandySCAN is as close to “plug and play” as it gets in the 3D scanning world.

Instructions for HandyScan and 3D model process link

My classmate Paula and I did a few scans with Julian (our instructor) to understand the usage of this amazing scanner, it was super fun yet a bit tricky as you should move steadily slow (emphasis on steady and slow) and at a very specific distance which is labeled as EXCELLENT distance or positioning in the software.

We scanned our faces twice, the second time we had a better result, we filled some of the wholes that the scanner wasn’t able to record in the 3DMODELPROCESS software, meaning that you can later try to perfection your scan if the result wasn’t optimal. Experimenting with the options inside the software we joined our faces and created ¨Paura¨, a very funny yet beautiful third being.

HandyScan, Slicer for Fusion 360 and MakeHuman¶

Once we were done learning to use the HandyScan, we were off to MAKEHUMAN and SLICER FOR FUSION 360 lecture which was impressively well explained.

link for tutorial SFF 360

link for tutorial MH

Finally, I was ready to conceptualise the assignment and it was clear to me that MAKEHUMAN was the best option for me as the HandyScan needed a bit of work and I didn’t want to lose time complicating things. This is something I will really emphasise in; do a simple fun exercise that captivates your curiosity and allows you to push through without pressuring yourself to create the new DaVinci. Even if you feel like it’s silly, your interests will always flow through you and somehow it will end up feeling connected, at least that has been my experience so far.

This model was the closest I could get to a front crawl swimmer pose, I distorted one arm to separate them as much as I could because I knew I had to slice the model in Rhino.

Slicing in Rhino7 and FixingHoles in 3D Model Process

So...basically I imported my file in Rhino7 from MakeHuman in .stl and these were the Commands I used: MESH to mesh the 3D figure, GUMBALL to position it to the angle that I needed, POLYLINE and MESHBOOLEANSPLIT to slice it and finally CAP to fill the object up so it could be read by SlicerFF but CAP didn´t work out because it had some internal objects interfering with the filling of the object.

Instead of CAP in Rhino, we did EXPLODE, cleaned the internal remnants and I fixed the hole in 3D Model Process. Here´s a tiny clip of the figure ready for Slicer for Fusion 360 and our laser cutter machine FRAMUN FL1409. The file was saved in dxf by the way.

Before jumping into my references and my actual prototype I must add that I have a Mac and these tutorials helped me find my way around Rhino7.

link for Rhino tutorials for MAC

Process and workflow¶

I learned to swim when I was a year and six months old, my home is an island in the Caribbean and I practice a sport in the ocean. I’m quite drawn by bodies of water in any form or shape. The whole non finito concept and my fascination for water played out an idea in my mind of printing in MD a female swimmer doing a front crawl stroke and stacking them as a technique. Something like this:

Reference 1: Damien Hirst¶

"Death is a central theme in Hirst's works. He became famous for a series of artworks in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) are preserved, sometimes having been dissected, in formaldehyde. The best-known of these was The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a 14-foot (4.3 m) tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a clear display case. He has also made "spin paintings", created on a spinning circular surface, and "spot paintings", which are rows of randomly coloured circles created by his assistants.¨

Reference 2: Ben Young¶

¨Ben Young is New Zealand-born, Australia-based self-taught sculptor who works with glass and concrete to create works that appear to have been sliced out of the ocean.

An avid surfer and boat builder, Ben’s appreciation for the sea is evident in his work. His sculptures are all hand-drawn, hand-cut and created out of clear sheet float glass that is layered with lamination.

Ben, who has been creating glass sculptures for over 10 years, develops the models, creates custom jigs and, with the use of a glazier hand tool, cuts the layers. He is big on planning and focuses intently on this part of the process. “I do a lot of thinking before I even start to draw or cut,” shares Ben. “I work with 2D shapes and have to figure out how to translate that into a 3D finished piece. Sometimes my starting point changes dramatically, as I have to find a way to layer the glass to create certain shapes.”.

More of Ben´s work here

Reference 3: Ruben Orozco¶

¨On Spain's northern coast, residents awoke to a shocking sight last week. The head of a young girl was nearly submerged in Bilbao's Nervion River as the water rose, covering her mouth, nose, and eyes.

The fiberglass sculpture is the work of Mexican hyperrealist artist Ruben Orozco Loza. It's titled "Bihar," meaning "Tomorrow" in Basque, the language spoken in the region.”.

Read full article here