Rnayyar: looking outwards 10; Sophie Kahn

I’m going to talk more about a process employed by Ms. Sophie Kahn rather than a specific project.
Sophie Kahn is a new media artist who grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and attended Goldsmith’s College in London for Fine Arts and Art History; she graduated in 2001.

Sophie has a history in photography, actually- which she finds useful in her pursuit of new media practices. Her sculptures combine Victorian era portraits/busts with 3D glitch art. With the use of the hyper-sensitive 3D laser scanner, she receives information about her subject’s face or body but with an aesthetically fascinating flaw. Due to the sensitivity of the 3D scanner, any movement is detected and registered. Therefore, the rendered subject is recorded with the movements of simple muscle twitches and even breaths that cause some sort of offset.

L:Degrade, 2012 Bronze (cast from 3D print) Life size

The results are these fascinating, almost historical sculptures that are either casted or 3D printed entirely.

Reclining Figure of a Woman, 2013 3D print (from 3D laser scan) Life size

Kahn does a spectacular job of embodying the allure and mystery of new media techniques in a classical manner which reminds viewers of ancient, excavated artworks from past eras. As someone in the School of Art here at CMU, I often find it very difficult to bridge that polarity but Sophie Kahn manages to accomplish it in an intriguing and sophisticated manner.

https://vimeo.com/58810920

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