IEEE Spectrum September, 2016 - 23

RESOURCES_GEEk LIfE

When glItches mAke
gooD Art
TwO ARTIsTs TURn
APARTmenTs InTO
3d-PRInTed sCULPTURes

wo women make their way
painstakingly around a cramped
apartment, moving in sync with
each other in a sort of techno-tango. Ziv
Schneider steadily passes a discontinued PrimeSense Carmine 3D scanner over
rows of picture frames, pots, and pans. Its
infrared sensors take in the curves and
divots of the tiny studio apartment. Caitlin
Robinson tails her, shotgun microphone in
hand, carrying a computer that's tethered
to her partner's scanner by a USB cable.
Their subject, Telma, sits frozen on her living room sofa bed, caught up in an episode
of "Downton Abbey."
When Schneider and Robinson finish, they'll
have a miniature, egglike, 3D-printed replica
of Telma sitting inside her home-a single moment in the life of an East Village resident that
can be held in the palm of your hand.
"When you don't have five different rooms,
then the one room you have-everything in
that space-becomes critical to who you are

TOP: KRIsTen CLARK; bOTTOm: ZIv sChneIdeR And CAITLIn RObInsOn

Through machiNE EyES: Interpolations
made by algorithms that process 3D scans
of apartments become part of the art itself.

as a person," says Robinson. "So we wanted
to capture that: people's personalities as
they are reflected on the walls."
Schneider and Robinson set out hoping to
document a time in New York City's history
in which more people are choosing to live
alone. Capsule Portraits began as a documentary project at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU's Tisch School
of the Arts. But the project quickly evolved

when the technology itself became an integral part of the creation process.
An interplay began between the two artists and their frequently glitchy gear and
software-an interplay that's influenced their
art in surprising and beautiful ways.
Robinson says she's come to think of the
technology as a third collaborator on the
team. "It's kind of interesting," she says, "to
see the world not through my own eyes but
through the eyes of a machine."
Schneider and Robinson had originally imagined that the scans would be a virtual environment, static worlds experienced with Google
Cardboard or a similar virtual reality platform.
However, they quickly realized that the detailed
3D meshes created by the scans were too
data-heavy to be processed by most current
mobile devices. So as an experiment, they gave
3D printing a try, incorporating the "watertight"
function of the Skanect 3D software.
The function employs an algorithm that
uses the internal structure of the apartment
to extrapolate an external shape, so the scan
can be closed up into a printable object. The
results were odd: curvy, bumpy, organiclooking shell enclosures with strange, unintended color artifacts. Schneider admits that
she didn't like them at first. But she quickly
fell in love when she realized how each print
resembled a living creature-a physical representation of the symbiosis between an
apartment and its occupant.
Other happy accidents continue to inspire possible future directions for their
work. Schneider says the Kinect 1 scanner
she uses has trouble with reflective surfaces,
for instance, causing the software to make
strange guesses about mirrors and what exists on the other side. The result is an Alice in
Wonderland-like "world beyond the mirror."
"It's fascinating to see the sensor's interpretation of what might be another reality-
or another layer of reality," says Schneider.
Rather than being frustrated by the nowdiscontinued hardware and problematic
software, Schneider says her biggest worry
is actually that its creators will make updates, "fixing" the glitches that she's come
to love so much. -KriSTEN clarK
See a video of the artists at work at http://
spectrum.ieee.org/techmeetsart0916

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

NORTh AMERICAN

SEP 2016

http://http:// http://spectrum.ieee.org/techmeetsart0916 http://SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum September, 2016