Drawing from the Digital, Rendering out the Analog

SCI_Arc Visual Studies / Spring 16'

Instructor : Devyn Weiser

Project Description

This exercise focused on different techniques of representation. Using the provided grasshopper scripts, we generated three distinct objects: each started from a cube, giving each of the edges a variety of representations: straight, curved, and squiggly; thick and thin. We then studied the overall composition of the resulting objects, exploring the effects of flatness and depth in a perspectival aerial view when adjusting the virtual camera. After digitally rendering this view, we then attempted to reproduce a matching analog representation by building physical models and photographing them with color filters and a camera precisely positioned using the three robot arms in the SCI_Arc Robot House. We were interested in the differences between these two representations that were revealed by overlaying and comparing them. This study allowed us to explore the possibilities and limitations of each representation and the consequences of the accumulated slight differences that emerged through the two processes. The impossible purported objective of the exercise, creating a perfectly matching pair of images, could only be achieved in the technical perfection of theory, an environment that we tried to create using the robot arms and a virtual camera.

In collaboration with : Kazuhiro Okamoto, Rachael Burke, Sasha Tillmann