digital forager. screenshot.

The artistic research I wanted to conduct was to start learning Blender, the 3d modeling program. I have 3d modeled before, in the program Fusion 360, but it is a program that is mainly suited for industrial work, like modeling parts to be machined. Blender is created for artistic work.

The process being to start learning the program and experimenting with methods, trying to see where 3d modeling could fit into my artistic practice, in ways it has fit before and if it can fit in new ways. With Fusion I had mainly used it in combination with analog photography, where I modeled and then took pictures of the screen after. Either the model on its own, with double exposure or by printing on paper to add to the composition.

I started with watching online tutorials, specifically one where you go through the program while modeling a donut. Got bored halfway through and turned the donut into an ear. For open academy, MFA1 decided to make this foraging field-guide, where we each were to write a text vaguely connected to foraging. I wrote a poem esque thing. The Blender project merged into the open academy project, and now is sort of a collection of smaller works and experiments, which I am planning to show in my studio during the open academy.

I wanted to learn UV mapping with the mushroom, but it had a weird shape to it, so it wouldn’t unwrap without having a lot smaller parts. I tried to make a texture from mushroom pictures from our field trip in September, it did not work as well as I had hoped. After I started UV mapping spheres, as a way of getting into it better.

While working on the donut, I found the way that the models looked while working on them to be fascinating, while changing parameters or turning the model around. I started taking screen-recordings of the program, to create a video work to project in my studio. I found having a more tangible project to work towards more driving than just modeling to learn the program. With it I started looking into the animation tools, after exploring UV mapping, making a planet with a scan of exposed undeveloped photopaper. Animating the camera to spin around the planet. The space background is free use, from; https://www.spacespheremaps.com/hdr-spheremaps/ .

Modeled an eye after, kind of silly looking, animating it struggling to stay awake, recording keyframes from manual mouse movements.

Edited the screen recordings toghether with the animations, screenshots and some other pictures from this semester. The video will play in my studio during open academy, with analog photographs and the text hanging on / around the door. And two paintings hanging on a wall.

I had shot a roll of film that was almost complete, so I shot the last couple of pictures, (they didn’t come out, but that’s a different issue,) then I loaded the film again in another camera, to shoot double exposure with images from blender. Screenshot. I projected the images in Kunstarken, with the camera on a tripod. In the darkroom I did very simple exposures, only physically cutting the film itself with scissors for a couple of pictures. Outside of that the double exposures were captured in the camera, the positioning random. I probably should’ve done some exposures that weren’t as centered in the frame, next time.

'utvalgte analoge fotografier 16'

I wanted to try to fit Blender into my painting practice. There is a painting I am workshopping where I want a reference for the perspective of the background. Instead of trying to find an image somewhere, a thought was to create that space in blender, to get it looking the way I imagine it to.

I don’t know how well I have learnt blender that well or gotten that much better at Blender than what knowledge I had from Fusion. I am somewhat more familiar with the interface. And the animation functionalities were new to me, although the keyframes works very similarly to Premiere Pro. Originally, I wanted to make one model every day for November, I have not made 30 models. First off, I did not start on the first, secondly, I feel like I wasn’t motivated to work just to work, in a way. I got a lot more motivation when it became a project, an artwork, collection. Which is how I think I work in general, work as in both function and labour.

The collection is made up of the video, the poem and the analog photographs.

I don’t know if I will continue with Blender. As said earlier, I think there would need to be a project connected to it. Right now, I am feeling a computer fatigue, booting up Blender doesn’t feel appetizing. But using 3d modelling for reference pictures I find fulfilling, being able to have a place between full freehand and using photographs. And the double exposures are amusing, but that’s not new for blender, and about half of the double exposures I did print wasn’t something from blender, although that might be because of one third of the film being blank. Animating was fun, but time consuming, maybe if I do some sort of mixed animation project in the future part of it might be Blender. But right now I will most likely take a break, we will see.

my baby takes the morning train.

the scavenger, body parts and tin cans.

do you ever find something?

are you yourself ever found?

can you 

forager. forage harvester. coax cable.

denzel washington. 

recent emojis. 

illiteracy.

finding the colors of dawn, the darkness of night. are your thoughts and ideas foraged? or do you hunt for your feelings?

there was an article about hunter-gatherers, that said that most of them were gatherers. where four fifths of their diets were foraged plant matter.¹

i guess hunting was important too, proteins, vitamin B12. but when there are more gatherers, why are the hunters the ones to dictate the flow of society? taking and destroying. no more honoring the kill. no mercy to the animal. hunting to hunt. market value. exponential growth. no communal pot, no elders around the fire. strict individualism. bus seat backpack.

digital forager. screenshot. alone.

are you truly a hunter? 

do you ever find something? a song youve never heard before, a rock in your shoe, a face in the crowd, yourself procrastinating, a good excuse, a good color combination. wild raspberries, cold hands from the glass. warmth in the dark, the 

do you ever find yourself somewhere? somewhere you dont want to be? wanted to change your actions? or maybe you thought you would find yourself somewhere else? expecting something different? maybe it was your inaction that put you here?

look around you, do you find anything? on the side of the road, in a place you had forgotten, in a dumpster, in a friend. things are never really lost, never really gone. eventually theyre found, or salvaged, incinerated, revived, remembered. even if theyre disposed they still exist, inside the landfill, on the forest floor, on the ocean floor, they never go away, even if you sweep them under the rug. pull the rug.

do you ever find anything? a vision of the future, an idea, a phrase somebody said, a mushroom, a piece of string, a plastic doodad, a thingamabob.

it has potential, to be something else, something not lost, something found.

¹Delvin, H. (2024). Hunter-gatherers were mostly gatherers, says archaeologist. The Guardian.