PARAMETRIC FLESH
Beijing Biennale of Architecture, 2004

In collaboration with Inger Mewburn

This project was born out of my interest in foregrounding the material processes involved in constructing images with contemporary imaging technologies and Inger's interest in modes of production akin to those of Roccoco architecture, with its intense viscerality of form.

The 3D scanner used in the project is employed at SIAL to produce smooth translations of physical objects into digital space. However, in order to enact such a translation it is necessary to counteract certain tendencies inherent in the physical mechanisms of the device. For example, the laser will not reflect off black and it is reflected strangely from metal. Because the scanner has such a high frequency resolution any small fluctuations over time are captured as a tremor on the surface of the scanned object. In our scans what is produced is a strange mixture of body and its informational artifact. Breath quivers. A giggle and I have three nipples. There are fragments of nothing between my fingers.

To produce an image one must follow the contours of the body with the scanner in such a way that, despite not being able to see it, one begins to feel the physicality of the medium. It is as if you are shaping the image in the same way as a Roccoco artisan would shape a piece of plaster moulding. There is no smooth translation here, but rather a performative iteration of surface and boundary.

The product of this research was a spoof poster presentation for the Beijing Biennale of Architecture (poster image top). The poster represents: A new interpretation of the meaning of the term 'architecural pornography' usually used to refer to the hyper-realism of commercial models; a parody of the fetishistic writing style found in contemporary cultural theory; a redeployment of parametric modeling concepts in the corporeal realm. Aside from a few key words that I changed, the poster text (see below) was lifted almost entirely from an article by Mark Burry in 'Surface Consciousness'(Wiley Academy, Ed. Mark Taylor) entitled 'Between Surface and Substance' pp13-14.

Poster Text:
Mobilising the inherently parametric nature of living flesh we have created a series of design strategies which embody the emergent properties of lived experience. Using a portable 3D scanner we performed an iterated transduction of surface in motion in order to capture the movements of a densely experienced moment. As we manipulate the flesh the topological intersection of constituent parts reveals an intensity only achievable in the biological domain.

The organic nature of the openings between adjacent membranes was emphasised by their adjustability in accordance with the position of arousal zones along each length. For instance in a matter of a few seconds the entire character of a concupiscent region could change from equal openings along the whole length to a uniform swelling along the lengths towards the middle to accentuating the openings at the erogenous centre of each face tapering away to being closed at the top bottom and sides.

< Prev