Unsuitable Objects: Disrupting Photorealism in the Digital 3D Scan through Art Practice.

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Stephens, Florian (2024) Unsuitable Objects: Disrupting Photorealism in the Digital 3D Scan through Art Practice. Doctoral thesis, University of West London.

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Official URL: https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/13697/

Abstract

This PhD research included a solo exhibition
held at Kindred Studios, London in 2023.

3D scanning technologies are shaped by photorealistic ideologies drawn from photography and computer graphics. However, photorealism is a belief that privileges photography as a “factual” representation of reality; it is not an inherent quality or attribute of digital capture technologies, but a technical-cultural concept imposed upon them. Through artistic research, this PhD thesis critiques theassumptions about photorealism embedded in commercial 3D scanning practices and non-critical approaches to the technology. Creative methodologies provoke 3D scanning to capture areas of solid colours, reflections, transparency, and cluttered interior architectural surfaces, all of which current commercial practices advise against. Scan-artworks explore the effect of three new categories of unscannable surface and environment on the photorealism aesthetic standards applied to reality capture. These disruptions remind us that 3D scanners are not cameras, and scanned models are, unlike computer-generated imagery, not naturally photoreal.
The thesis documents novel types of disruptions formerly considered flaws or errors in 3D scanning, that present new ways of considering the distinctions between what
scanners perceive and what we perceive, offering new perspectives on the relationship between 3D scanning and digital indexicality.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Identifier:	10.36828/thesis/13697
Subjects:	Media > Photography
Depositing User:	Marc Forster
Date Deposited:	27 May 2025 12:10
Last Modified:	27 May 2025 12:15
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/13697