Something Similar to Me / About Seeing Things by Akihiko Taniguchi is an interactive essay on identity in the digital age. The work presents a digital space with 3D scannings of environment fragments from Taniguchi’s daily observations, and invits viewers to navigate around the created world by controlling a 3D scanning of the artist himself.
What I love about the work is that Taniguchi recontextualizes ordinary objects in physical spaces through digital processes, and constructs a new environment for reflecting upon the identities of these objects in digital space. The artist created both the 3D experience and the writing used in the piece. Nothing about the process of development was presented but I think the work is made with a combination of “off-the-shelf” software (maybe using 3D game engine) and custom scripts for the interactions and hardware setups.
Taniguchi listed domestic by Mary Flanagan and Legible City by Jeffrey Shaw as inspirations behind his work.
Both works deal with creating 3D digital space and finding the connection between virtual and real world spaces. The most intriguing part of the project, which also could point to future opportunities, is its selection of mundane objects and the usage of direct presentation of the original forms (without reimagining or modeling via digital methods).
It also reminds me of how AR has been incorporated into online retailing experiences. How will we present everyday objects digitally in the near future?
Here’s the video abstract of Taniguchi’s work: