Concept Statement
The theme of my typology is Texture on my Everyday Objects, seen through a high quality macro lens and rendered into three dimensions using Photogrammetry. I interact with a myriad of objects in a single day, often times these are things I carry with me at all time – such as my pencil, sketchbook, or a bone folder – what patterns might emerge if I sample each of these objects and put them on display?
Inspiration
In Mike Mill’s film 20th Century Women there’s a scene in which Abbie, played by Gretta Gerwig, is explaining her most recent photography project to her housemate. The project is a typology of her things: lipstick, a bra, her camera, etc. In the film we see quick cuts between each image, which are composed and lit in the same way but only vary in the content. In some ways the objects are mundane, but through the composition and curation there is an intrigue given to the objects. I’m hoping to explore a similar vein in my typology.
Link to an article on Mike Mill’s use of object as an inspiration for his film:
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/mike-mills-20th-century-women-artifacts.html
From its inception photography has been connected with the world of science and structured observation. The typology of the Horse in Motion exemplifies this use case – where a horse was photographed in profile as it galloped and was then imposed on a grid to allow people to see the true nature of the horses gate.
Implementation
My goal is to create a super standardized photographic composition by creating a highly controlled system for holding and imaging samples. I will construct a small platform to hold my samples and calibrate the robotic arm to take an image sweep across the plane of the mounting plate. My final setup will be a structure similar to a microscope, which will often have fixturing for samples on a stable bed. I will use the robot arm in tandem with the arduino controllable blackmagic camera to produce high quality video of the surface of the object, which can then be turned into a 3d model by photogrammetry software.
Curation
My goal is that the typology will be viewable in the looking glass – maybe built into a box that the viewer can hold? By turning a knob the viewer will be able to shift through the models displayed.
Tools
- Studio Robot arm – running simple linear trajectories calibrated with respect to the sample platform
- Blackmagic Film Camera + Arduino
- Integrated lighting & object fixturing system – a platform for ‘samples’ with some kind of integrated lighting system – so that lighting doesn’t change between many samples