ART 3101 3d Modeling and Sculpture, Art and Technology, The Ohio State University

Project 1: Telepistomologic Themie: Extensions of self looking at other.
Use 8 1/2 x 12 archival ink sketchbook for three sketches on archival ink paper required for class.

After this do 3 high quality pencil drawings in your sketch book thinking about how you can use 3d tools to to create and model a device that will attach to your phone camera (video or stills) sound recording device, or photographic camera to capture the digital or analog nature of some sort of Insect, fish, bird, mouse, pill bug, leaf hopper, plant structure, or natural system.

Will you use lenses, timers on your camera or phone, perhaps sound activation and extensions with broomsticks, strings, bamboo poles, acrylic or glass lenses, to extend the phone where you cannot reach or a scale you cannot normally see? Will it involve some extension lenses to extend your cameras ability to capture animals at OSU, perhaps in motion?

Will it allow you to see in places you would not normally observe animals and insects? Can it be submerged underwater? Can it do time lapse? Can it be attached to a telescope or microcope?

These drawings must be high quality with shading and good detail and plan to spend a minimum of 6 hours on these. They should be dimensionally accurate..ie you have measured your phone or capture device carefully so 3D model will fit onto the device to allow this extension, in the rapid prototyping device you print. Will his attach to othe devices in some that allow it to move?

Critial questions as you imagine your design: What is the scale of the object? Is it a micrometer? Is it a few inches...a foot? How does the scale impact your design and the materials it would be constructed of outside the computer? Will you use the laser cutter, rapid prototyping, wood, duct tape? Type A Machines etc? Are the materials you use to encapsulate your capture device, strong and durable to protect your phone/camera/sound capture device? Will it involve motion or stills? Think how can I hack my camera/phone and bring some new way of seeing animals to the table.

Will animals who are your primary subject, be interested or frightened? Is food enough? How might form and site play a role in attracting your desired capture subject?

Think outside of the box and imagine the next art/science application for your Telepistomological Themie device. What might it capture about animals/plants that we currently do not know?. What does it do? How might it enter the environment of the animal, insect body or some other natural system? How does it engender both biological and machine forms? How are animals and insects evolving to exist in the urban environment? Will the insect be in a box or a mini terrarium? How is the animal considered in this process?

Make sure that each of the 3 drawings are derived from 3 different 3D perspectives, perspective, top and side, similiar to the way the (view windows) work in your 3D application. Example: (one front view, one right side view, one perspective view)

Think of assignment 1 as the first part of assignment 2: Telepistomologic Themie these will serve as your plans/sketches for your 3D models that you make in project 2 and that you then construct.

A strict requirement is that the project must not harm or scare any animal or insect in any way.

Respect all life forms!

Additional reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_wildlife

Grades for this project will be assigned when students turn in three good scans at min 200 DPI of each of the three drawings and hand into professor when the assignment is due.

Look and read about: Carsten Höller who disturbs his viewers' assumptions with interactive sculptures that deliberately and playfully induce doubts and confusion. As a former scientist in evolutionary ecology and olfactory communication Höller uses the audience as subjects of perceptual and psychological experimentation.

His work sets out to study a particular concept. In the past, Höller has made series devoted to the ideas of security, children, love, hallucinations, happiness, animals, games, doubt/certainty, and a group of sculpture/vehicles that looked at different modes of travel.

His work encloses the viewer to control and manipulate the way we recieve light.

Mona Hatoum's work uses sculptural form and shadow to create evocative and visceral worlds focused on drawing the viewer into emotive and intellectual worlds.http://whitecube.com/artists/mona_hatoum/

Andreas Slominski: Has been working with the ideas of "trapping" for many years and in this process creates an amazing array of objects ranging from snares to humourous decoys. All these works look to the animals to be trapped for logic about what the desires and point of views of these creatures will be.

Prepare 1 3D model with color and lighting, using parametric primitives to create one model. Check out these other links here for inspiration of how animals were captured with lenses and pencil drawings.

For fun Google the word telepistomology and the word selfie and themie and you will find many exciting links. By Themie, I am refering to an object of knowing and discovering "other" with our languages of description, documentation and modeling. Think about turning something that is normally thought of as a logical organic structure, into a machine counterpart. Check this book out: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/allure-machinic-life for further context.

You can use polygon based objects to make this dimensionally accurate.On critique day, turn in at least three rendered stills with color and texture mapping, of different camera views at a minimum size of 1920 x 1080 at 72 DPI (Maya render image size preset HD 1080). Bring to class a one half page description of your concept of this project. Grades for this project will be assigned when students upload the drawings to the professors folder in the classroom and bring their one half page description of their concept on a thumb drive.

...and part of this assignment will result in 10 images submitted with this project.

Objective: To design an enhancement, connection, or technological device for an existing (or previously existing) biological creature that gives it some extra ability or replacement of function that has been removed or will enhance the creature in some way.

Create 3 high quality pencil drawings with shading and/or color in your sketch book of an installation object that will allow your viewer to experience space or the body in another way. Consider first and foremost your audience. What do you want them to experience? What do you want them to see? What do you want them to feel?

How will you present this work? If this prosthetic is for humans, would it be more effective for you to "perform" the work through a live demonstration in the gallery? Or maybe an interactive work?

Think about all the animals that have gone extinct -- or are about to -- and what might have allowed them to survive or behave in some new way to allow them to instantly adapt to the new environment. What would you design? What bodily extension could you model and rapid prototype to help save a species?

Many have surmised that the dinosaurs went extinct after a massive meteorite slammed into our planet. What might have been the art and design you would have created to save them? A heat shield to deflect the blast? Or would a gas mask be more effective, to deal with the dust storm that followed?

Your design need not "solve a problem" (as with extinction) but instead might enhance an animal for purely artistic or aesthetic reasons.

One excellent resource for animals and interaction with designed and prosthetic objects is Antennae, "The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture", especially their back issues.

Think about Zhang Huan's meat suit and its implied strength as well as the grotesque quality of the of the work.

And Ken Rinaldo's Spider Haus and the artificial plants that allow the spider to inhabit this artificial world... or his Augmented Fish Reality work (website / Wired article) that allows a fish to drive a robotic fish tank.

And Nina Katchadorian's Mended Spiderweb series, which become strange collaborations with spiders.

And what about humans? Stelarc is one artist who has created bodily extensions using technology, such as his Ear On Arm (article / video, be warned, it's a graphic video) and his Third Hand.

Project 4: The Prosthetic Object (physical fabrication)

Objective: Turn Project 3 into reality. Convert your sketches and designs into 3D model(s). Output your 3D model using the most appropriate rapid prototyping tool (3D printer, laser cutter, CNC, etc.).

Design and create a dimensionally accurate 3D object that fits onto the creature that you are enhancing. Create your 3D model with an eye for correct measurements as well as good aesthetics. This might be a work you present as part of your Art and Technology final project, so your level of construction is expected to be gallery quality.

Since you can use the laser cutter and/or the CNC for this project, its scale can be as significant as your imagination and energy allow.

Objective: Design an object of that uses the principles of Biophilic design.

This is the beginning of your final project and your last hurrah. You will begin by coming to class with 5 ideas and quick rough sketches of these and then in discussions with the professor will settle on and fully research one of those ideas to further add context. You will then create 2 highly detailed drawings of your concept for pursuit and creation of the 3D models. You are also required to turn in a 200 word written proposal of what you would like to accomplish with your final piece and we will go over your proposals together to discuss artistic and technical merits.

Research must be a part of this project: what artists have informed your approach, what art/science movements are relevent, and so on. Be ready to discuss in class the artists, scientists, and/or philosophers have you researched and which have influenced you and why.

Key concepts: Symbiosis, living systems, co-existence, sustainability, green living, recycling,

Objective: Physically fabricate your Biophilic Design from Project 5 using a 3D printer, laser cutter, CNC, and/or other fabrication tools. Also create 3 renders fully lit and placed in the appropriate context for presentation during the final critique.

(Alternate: For those wishing to instead fabricate their Telepistomologic Themie models from Project 2, this is possible -- but only with permission from your instructor.).

This project (or another project curated by the professor) will be presented in the end of the semester show. For your final presentation you will be required to (1) print one render of your 3D works on a 2D (image) printer in our lab and framed professionally by you or a service, and (2) present your 3D rapid prototyped project in the exhibition as a physical sculpture, installation or performance.

You should plan on at least one digital print. Minimum size is 24 x 16 inches, but larger is usually better -- scale is an important part of communicating your idea. Please discuss with the professor for larger printouts that can happen on our printers (up to 44 inches wide and ANY length!).

In addition to the render prints and rapid prototyped works, you are also required to turn in 3 rendered stills at a minimum size of 1920 x 1080 at 72 DPI (Maya render image size preset HD 1080). Each should have a different lighting scheme and camera angle. These must be submitted via Carmen dropbox.

Remember that when presenting your work as a printed image you MUST render your images at a larger resolution of 300 DPI and the width and height matching your print size.

Grades for this project will be assigned when students upload scans of their drawings and the 3 renders to the Carmen dropbox.