2. Digital bodies

References & Inspiration

  1. Katie Grinnan
  2. Freddie Robins

  1. Ann B. Coddington
  2. STELARC

  1. Simone C.Niquille
  2. Kevin Bray

  1. Loïe Fuller


For this first week, I wanted to work on the movement. When we capture something, whether it's inert or alive, 3D scanning freezes it in a space-time that corresponds to the moment of capture. For this exercise, I wondered how we could restore the stolen movement to the captured body. I worked on the hand, it’s the part of my body that is the most active.

Tools

↓↓↓↓ For the Add-on "Laser Slacer" I followed this tutorial on Youtube ↓↓↓↓

Tools I used for the assembly Tools I used for the assembly

Process and workflow

We went to the fab lab CityFab 1, to use 3D scanner !

Sloooow movements

With the help of Sophia and Stephanie, I could scan 3 diferents hands ↓↓↓↓

First bugs :

the hands !!

The hand I chosed

At the beginning I wanted to create a 3D model as Katie Grinnan does or Kevin Bray by multiplying my 3D hands in Blender and recreate ce waving movement of Hello..

Finally I decided to work on one hand and focus on the material I will use to create movement.

It's Sophia's hand !!

Step 1 : Clean the 3D mesh on InstantMesh software

  1. open the .obj file with the software Instant Meshes
  2. You can choose the amount of polygones you want in your mesh with "Target Vertex Count"
  3. clic on Solve
  4. You can now determined the direction of the polygones in the mesh by clicking on the mesh and draw the direction.
  5. clic on the second Solve -> Extract your mesh and save it !

Step 2 : Clean and polish the 3D mesh on Blender

Step 3 : The "Laser Cuter" add-on

For my hand, I decided to use cotton fabrics. By using fabric, I give my sculpture flexibility and movement! The support also affects the resolution of the sculpture; using fabrics as support means 0.5 mm of thickness. To reduce the number of layers, I doubled my support fabric for one cut. In the end, I had to cut 300 layers.

Step 4 : Time to cut !

By slicing your mesh, the add-on export directly a SVG file that gather all the layers of the sliced mesh. The laser cutter we used at the Green Fabric is the Beambox pro. The maximum file size that the machine can cut is 60x40 cm. I had to divide my 300 layers into 8 SVG files of 60x40 cm.

Step 4.1 : test in Beambox !

Since I need to cut two layers of fabric at the same time, I increased the power of the laser.

cuts moments :

Step 5 : The assembly

To keep as much movement as possible, I assembled everything with thread and needle.

And juste once, I used a little bit of glue !

Final

This hand belongs to the body of a zombie or a mummy. The twist in my work is that I wanted to transition from an inert form to a living one; the effect works, but the aesthetic suggests something dead. A dead alive ? YES !!!

Next to the real hand ↓

Among all the laser cuttings ↓

Fabrication files

The 4 hands obj files :

The bugs :

The 8 svg files :

  1. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  2. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  3. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  4. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  5. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  6. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  7. File: Laser cut sheets ↩

  8. File: Laser cut sheets ↩