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Why Photogrammetry? How were you first introduced to it and why do you feel it continues to be an integral part of your work?
My interest in the process of photogrammetry is driven by its potential for accessibility and collaboration. I was first introduced to digital scanning techniques by the people at Scatter Studio. And was further drawn in by the idea of artists creating tools to enable other artists. As I emerged in the medium, I also became aware of artists like Morehshin Allahyari who have raised the issue of “digital colonialism,” questioning the notion of ownership and inherent exploitative nature of these digital scanning and prototyping tools. These inform the basis of my research. I consider photogrammetry at the crossroads between photography and sculpture. In workshops, the process necessitated by this medium provides participants and I a framework for posing a number of both specific and potentially expansive questions, such as: How does the mechanics of stitching multiple perspectives offer a different model for living and knowledge forming? What does it mean to think about the artist as a knot maker and connector of ideas, as someone who imagines how new social structures converge with old relationships? The workshop Knowing Together and Photographic Knitting Club are examples of us starting to explore these questions.
How have you seen people interact with and respond to your work and workshops?
Some interactions in my work involve embracing a stranger for a prolonged period (Embrace in progress), performing rituals on food (A Ritual of Habits), or investigating their own immediate space using their cameras (Photographic Knitting Club). Each workshop requires a great deal of preparation. My work process often resembles the anticipation of events much like the writing of a script and staging of a play, or how a technician might set up a machine and make sure it’s up and running. I give participants (or myself) a set of instructions, and we observe the results together. I found myself concerned less about the outcome recently, but focused more on creating that situation, and how to learn together as a group under that condition or guidance.
Sometimes I do translate these experiences into artifacts or installations. For instance, in the case of A Ritual of Habits, I created an immersive space for these stories to unfold. For this project I chose to create a project around the forms of desserts, which, often associated with femininity, grow eerie, become life-size, and take control over you. Sometimes people come out feeling conflicted and confused. Outside of this VR environment, we still need to be reminded that the tech world or immersive content needs to bring in more POC and female creators. Despite some of these surreal images and contexts, and partially because of the demographic who has access to VR headsets, I still often receive feedback along the lines of “I feel hungry” or “it’s cute.”
Both in Ritual of Habits and beyond, how and why did you decide to focus your work on the creation of digital objects?
Beyond creating digital objects, more and more I see myself as a facilitator for collaborative experiences like workshops and classes. The focus is placed on the capturing process rather than in constructing the resulting objects.
Because the scanning process resembles the peeling off of skins and then the sewing of them back together, it can come across as a very violent action, much like how many might describe and critique the role of a photographer. At the same time, scanning is about getting all the information from the surface of an object, resulting in something hollow--you can view the world from the inside, making the technique somehow femenine and intimate. This contradiction drives me to continue investigating in the process of the medium, borrowing the language of photography and translating it into a new vernacular of capturing techniques. The limitations of 3D scanning technology today make it very similar to early photography. For instance, the delay between capture and final processing creates a sense of anticipation and excitement. The way a chemical image takes shape on photo paper is similar to the software’s process of stitching photos, connecting a point cloud, and reconstructing a mesh in 3D space. You can’t immediately see the results of photogrammetry, just like traditional photographs that had to be developed in a dedicated space like a darkroom. There is something magical and lonesome about both of these expansive processes.
What relationship does your work have with time? How have you seen yourself and your interactions with your projects changed over that period of time?
Like a sculptor, there is a need to test materials by hand to understand their physical property. In A Ritual of Habits, I was interested in investigating the material and repetitive physical labour of photogrammetry. For two years, the rule I gave to myself was using the technique to archive every sugary food that I consumed. It was also a way to explore my predilection for sweets that is associated with my family’s excessive intake of sugar, and Taiwan’s colonial past as a major sugarcane producer.
Over this period, I started noticing that the technology was conditioning what I put into my body -- glossy and shiny treats now translate to distorted and broken scans in my head. Unlike humans, machines are not impressed by shiny objects—reducing or distorting aspects of desserts that are most visually appealing--glaze, egg wash, fudge, jelly, or melting ice cream. Instead, the process prefers and most precisely renders rough-looking baked goods, like cookies, muffins, croissants, and coffee cake. From an anthropological point of view, I am interested in capturing the patterns that might emerge over a long period of time, new consumption habits, my relationship to sweets, or even how my friends interact with me at dinner tables.
Where can we find more of your work? Is there anything ongoing that is coming up that you’d like to share?
As we spend more time online, I’ve been thinking about how new tools and collaborative methods can make us more mindful of our surroundings, and provide alternative ways to connect. I started the initiative Photographic Knitting Club, a tutorial-essay and virtual workshop about photogrammetry using devices people already own. Knitting circles are communal; but instead of using yarn, in this club, we knit images together. During the workshop, we gather to discuss the gesture of knitting and play with different ways of looking at our familiar spaces during the pandemic. We use our cameras to pay close attention to these findings. Some guiding questions that have emerged from this experiment are: After a disaster, people often return to the site of destruction to mourn and rebuild--where do you go if you spent much of the time of the pandemic isolated and alone online? How have familiar places become strange or dangerous, even if you were not able to isolate? The output will be distributed as an e-zine hosted on a web browser, with various instructions, reflections, as well as documentations from our virtual experiences. There have been three workshops so far, to participate you can look out for announcements on my instagram and website.
I will continue this project as part of my artist residency at Delfina Foundation in London for the upcoming Fall, and Vermont Studio Center in early 2021. I will also be teaching a course based on my research in Czechia for the spring semester.
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