JM Larkin
Over the past few weeks I’ve decorated my bookshelf with a Hellenistic Egyptian miniature jar, an Anglo-Saxon coin with obverse of King Harold II’s head and what looks like an arrow, Charlie Parker’s saxophone, a skull belonging to one Paranthropus afarensis (known as “The Black Skull”), a Tanagra figurine, a Korean celadon vase, two Benin Birds, and a Ptolemaic Cat statuette. I acquired these objects freely from prominent collections and was assisted by archaeologists, curators, and amateurs; nobody got hurt. They look fine on my bookshelf, arranged a bit capriciously, but I’ll probably grow tired of them and eventually let them collect dust somewhere in a corner. My cat has already knocked over one of the Benin Birds, breaking its legs.
Of course these aren’t the real objects, those are all still safe in their museum cases, but plastic fabrications made using additive manufacturing (I 3D printed them). Daily the online database of 3D images of culturally significant objects grows and manifestos from groups like Scan The World lay out frameworks for the proper use of this new technology. I read the manifesto, it’s a bit cynical for my taste, but I think the gist of it is that they want me to take these 3D object files and 3D print them, and in so doing I will contribute to a cultural battle against a growing soulless digital void in the form of a metaverse. I’ve skimmed through Baudrillard so I won’t argue with them, but I won’t actually agree with them either. Truthfully, I just want the objects as play things, but I’m happy to frame my curiosity as cultural altruism if I can.
I contacted the curator of the Jondishapour Museum of Trade History in Shiraz, Iran to express my gratitude for the varied and delicate collection they have uploaded onto the website Sketchfab. I asked about their scanning methods and they told me that the photogrammetric method, not scanning, was used. A method as old as photography itself, multiple photographs are taken from different angles and used to calculate three-dimensionality. Many uploads to sites like Sketchfab are made from cellphones with software capable of processing hundreds of different pictures to create 3D images of intimate and overlooked objects and places, like rusted farm tools from a family estate or a mossy rock in the woods. Amateur drone footage has yielded detailed 3D images of outdoor monuments in Vienna. A combination of techniques is employed in the case of interiors and exteriors of mosques in Yemen and Palestine (perfect for those who hate to travel). Some institutions do have fancy and expensive imaging devices that extend beyond mere photogrammetry (RISD’s Nature Lab has a notable online collection and allows for in-house use of their laser scanners), and it’s clear that many of the uploads on sites like Sketchfab are a result of academic collaboration, but there are plenty of images that are likely clandestine in origin, snapped shots of an object under glass taken by a marauding (or liberating?) museum goer on a cell phone.
It’s a form of nondestructive imaging, where the object is not damaged or even touched in the process, hence no one or nothing gets hurt, and it’s not at all like the way these objects ended up in museum collections in the first place, being physically taken from one place to another. But not everything is free to download online(everything on Scan The World is), and although I’m free to look at and spin around these objects in my browser, I can’t always download them to 3D print. For example, I’ve had my eye on some Meroetic fineware in the collection of the University of Chicago for some time, even before 3D images of them started being uploaded, but the archaeologist who is uploading them hasn’t responded to me yet and may be unimpressed by my plan to fill them with actual sand I collected with my own hands at Meroe in 2013. I recently talked to my friend from Bagrawiyah, a village near the ruins of Meroe, and he told me the National Museum of Sudan has been looted and burned during the recent fighting; the museum became a literal battlefield. I also want some of the objects from the Jondishapour Museum of Trade History in Iran, but I have hesitated to ask for them. I have, however, shared with the director there a 2-dimensional image of a 12th-13th century Khorosanian Bronze Cat at the Worcester Art Museum and they are very interested in both the object and how it came to Worcester. Perhaps if I can make my own 3D image of the Bronze Cat they may be willing to trade.
The Jazz Robot Studios 