Welcome to the future where we have 3D models floating midair in holographic form! Just kidding, but it’s still pretty cool what you can do with some plastic, hot glue and a 3D modeling software.
In this project me and my partner had just finished a fairly successful virtual reality project and we were really spurred on by the momentum it gave us. Our next logical conclusion was that we simply had to figure out how to take the next step into the future of technology – by getting crafty. I had previously already been very fond and fascinated with the concept of holograms, going as far as to see how they might start being made today and what technological aspects may need to be taken into consideration; the only thing I could really find were conceptual approaches to this concept, using floating cubes that can change colours, attached to drones, forming ‘images’ midair (each cube representing a pixel). The only thing was that these cubes were relatively huge for a pixel seeing as it had to be attached to the drone and capable of flying around, navigating itself correctly. These technical aspects aside, this was the sort of inspiration I had before even delving into the logistics of how exactly we were going to create a ‘hologram’ depicting the concept of light and what that meant to us.
Because we don’t really have access to this kind of material, we decided to use a more ‘organic’ approach. We stumbled upon a ‘how to make a mini hologram’ video and it was clear to us that if we could effectively convey our idea through the use of artificial light vs. organic light, we would definitely achieve a reaction from the audience just from the pure irony of showing nature as a 3D modelled object using artificial light. Nature being shown this way may be cynical but it does somewhat represent a foreboding truth about our future. Unpleasent as it is, it is apparent that in our society today there seems to be an ambivalent fear of what the future will bring when humanity so blatantly absuses the earth and it’s riches through deforestation and oil mining, amoung other climate-change inducing destruction. So in order to convey these ideas we decided to present our ideas to the class by making a prototype of what we wanted our ‘mini-hologram’ to look like.
To build the hologram itself was quite simple, when presenting the first prototype we made only one smaller sized hologram for displaying purposes. We used this video to show exactly what we wanted our final model to look like. After taking notes and discussing the nature of what we wanted the actual final product to look like, we decided to make actual plants as part of the final work. We weren’t sure yet as to which ones, but we knew we wanted to take a darker take on what society might be like in a hundred years where in big cities, the only exposure to nature may be through holograms.
Later we established that we wanted a series of holograms to show off the models we’d make so we decided to create two different sizes of the ‘holograms’ to use one for a tablet (for larger scale meant for one type of plant) and the smaller ‘holograms’ for the classes mobile devices.
(One large sized, and 12 small sized pyramids.)
Large;
Small sized;
Now in order to make the models we had to use an online software called ‘SculptGL’ as well as a software called ‘Maya’ where we could upload textures and complete finishing touches. The first object was one I created called the ‘seedling’ and the second one was the ‘holoshroom’ made by Sofie.
The reasoning behind the seedling and the mushroom were to focus on symbolic representation of all of nature. Seeing as every planet begins with a small seed/root, we decided the seedling would represent nature as a whole whilst the mushrooms were a symbol of the mushrooms that are currently rapidly depleting all over the world. Not only this but to symbolize all plants and animals going extinct, where the main cause of this depletion is because of human interference; air pollution, deforestation, and the general rise of heat on the planet that we are causing. This human interference is very harmful and causes catastrophical issues for biomes that harbour these species of mushroom as they require very delicate environmental circumstance in order to survive. This nearly extinct category of funghi is only a sliver of all the plantation that is going to disappear faster and faster as we wait for the earth’s temperature to steadily rise. This modern day fear of, in the future, being unable to tell your children about a type of plant or animal because they simply do not exist anymore is something that, as tragic as it sounds, will most likely happen.
Most people in this day have unfortunately accepted this as fate, along with the slow destruction of our planet. It is a morose and impending fear that no one really wants to think about seeing as it is all rather depressing yet is still so wildly imminent.
When we came into class for the final presentations we decided a black out room and a bright screen were all that were needed for the representation of our concept. Nature’s sounds are beautiful and the gentle hum of electricity and near silence are eerie, just as much as the issue itself is. Since the project is interactive, a QR code was sent to everyone and we could all place our phones on the table and hand out everyone a makeshift hologram, where everyone could place them on the center of their phones as a video surrounded by the 3D object plays.
To conclude, the project itself was fairly connected to the concept of light as we tried to represent what light meant for us in a technological perspective. Artificial vs. organic is the the war of the future and we’d rather be able to choose between the two than have to give one up for the prosperity of the other.
