Something Similar to Me / About Seeing Things

私のようなもの / 見ることについて

Akihiko Taniguchi

abstract



This is an interactive essay / poem about the Seeing and Identity in new visual media age, especially 3D scanning.

Two identical avatars of TANIGUCHI himself made using a 3D scanner—as the artist’s “alter egos” of sorts—are placed in a three-dimensional virtual environment. Visitors can navigate either one of them through visual projections of the scenery as seen from the respective avatar. Surrounded by objects reproduced from 3D scans of things from the artist’s daily life environment, the avatars move around progressing along several texts on the subject of “seeing.”

Whenever we see things, this necessarily involves the process of selecting the objects we look at, whereas the selection of targets (or better, the selection of things to exclude) is certainly based in part on data accumulated through our past experiences. The creation of models and textures through 3D scanning, a technology that has become quite easily accessible in recent years, requires large amounts of data obtained by scanning objects at different times and from different angles. Likewise, the act of “seeing” that appears to be a matter of seconds is in fact a phenomenon that involves accumulations of multiple moments in time.

Visitors at the exhibition space can also browse through texts related to various forms of “seeing” and how memories are recalled by looking at mirrors, computers or other things.

full scenes

script

Full script (pdf)
日本語 テキスト(pdf)

installation view

specification

Floor plan (sketchup file)
Techrider (pdf)

references

inspired by these works.