Before getting ink, get pixels

Previz -- Tattoo project
Image: Loïc Zimmermann, via CGSociety (also here)

Yesterday I came across a fascinating example of visualisation, or multimedia-enabled forethought, applied in an unusual domain: illustrating the body.

French CG artist Loïc Zimmermann (a.k.a. e338) explains:

I've been thinking of having a tattoo for years and years now. Obviously I wanted to draw it by myself and I recently felt like I was ready for that.

As soon as i found a crazy guy capable (technicaly) of doing something really precise, I started the design process.
...
Since I wanted to do something really precise regarding the anatomy, I felt I could use a little help in order to be as close as possible to the reality.

My work at the moment consists in doing characters for a videoGame company, Quantic Dream, and to do so, after the casting is done, we use 3D scanners of the faces as a guideline for the modelling process.

I asked my fella Thierry, character supervisor there, if we could manage a scan session of my body and he said yeah ( I told you he's cool right?).

Patches from Zimmermann's body scan

A wireframe topology overlaid on the assembled scan

The ZBrush (digital sculpting software) version

The tattoo design, laid flat
Above images: Loic Zimmermann, via CGSociety (see also here)

A rendered digital version of the artist's body...

...with the tattoo added
[See also this version, and a closeup here]

Zimmermann has written about the whole process in a series of posts since mid-02007...

The work in progress, "après 11h de torture"
Photo via Loïc Zimmermann's blog

...announcing in March this year that this, his first tattoo, was complete.

After more than 39 hours of work... done.
Photo via Loïc Zimmerman's blog

First things first: this is a shockingly great piece of artwork. Quite a few comments at his blog are to the effect that "I never wanted a tattoo, now I do". I see where they're coming from.

Second, Zimmermann's is a really interesting, innovative use of 3D modelling. Whether you happen to be interested in tattoo art or not, this process for visually thinking out a high-stakes personal decision represents a mode of engaging possibility that until recently was unavailable. A number of online sources [e.g.1, e.g.2] seem to be labouring under the misconception that this is a brilliant new turnkey program "invented" to enable the tattoo-envying masses to look before they leap. Unless the misconception is mine, at this point it's more in the nature of an extremely labour intensive artistic and personal investment on Zimmermann's part, done for his own purposes. But it does also strike me as the kind of application idea that may well become available before too long (if in a somewhat crappy, attenuated form) to Joe and Jane Internet, using multi-angle webcam shots and user-uploaded designs.

In recent months, we've come across a few interesting instances of wearable foresight aids -- the old suit, the empathy belly, and the alertness enhancing device. We've also seen a concept design for sanitising a dystopian future with a less distressing appearance. Here is a contrasting example of prosthetic foresight, not to be worn on the body but to imagine its transformation; an ingenious and rather lovely artist's hack of 3D modelling tools, powerfully envisioning a future state for Zimmermann to contemplate during his 40-odd hours under the tattooist's needle.

The tattoo has apparently delivered on its promise. This month he made a start on part deux.

(via Yoso tattoo studio)

Update (11FEB10): I wrote in Sept '08: "it does also strike me as the kind of application idea that may well become available before too long (if in a somewhat crappy, attenuated form) to Joe and Jane Internet, using multi-angle webcam shots and user-uploaded designs."

Now the Internet says: "Have you ever wondered what a tattoo or multiple tattoos might look like on you? Why not try it out virtually before you really get it done! You can use pre-loaded pictures and body art or upload your own. Another way to try it before you buy it, and it's all for under $10 for a whole year." Link (Thanks Sarah!)

Related posts:
> Facing future
> Fatigue, irritability, and much, much more!

Put on a happy face

There's more than one way to skin a world.

The future isn’t all rosy. Increasing pollution, overpopulation, poverty, and climate change – society’s impact on the earth is reaching a breaking point. And while we may work to slow the onset of these catastrophes, reversing them is no longer an option. The question becomes, how do we live with the troubles we’ve already caused?
[...]
In a troubling future, these augmented reality devices would offer a new dimension - a virtual layer that could be used to “re-skin” the troubling outside world. A boundary between the wearer and the world around him, the device would become a sort of visual drug, used to make the world appear a better place – even if just for a moment.

~"frogConcept: A Digital Escape", frog design News, 16 May 02008

This is a concept design released last week by international creative consultancy frog design -- not dissimilar in promotional intent from other concepts blogged here in recent months.

Among frog's earlier forays into concept design...

The gelfrog (date unknown; image via oobject): "a futuristic laptop for teenagers. [...] The gelfrog converges style and function. The final product is rugged, yet flexible enough to be used in the classroom, in the urban jungle, or on the nature trail."

Tribons (date unknown): "These ultra lightweight and powerful systems connect kids with friends and family and through this provide emotional support which is necessary to compensate the trend of children growing up anonymously in cities and separation caused by increased mobility. [...] The wearable system uses future laser projection technology and is controlled by an intuitive 3D user interface."

Dattoos (02005): "The idea of DNA tattoos (Dattoos) is to use the body itself as hardware and interaction platform, through the use of minimally-invasive, recyclable materials. [...] The final concept aims to achieve a convergence of the following capabilities: DNA-reader and identification technology; nanosensors and interactive "touch reading" for finger tips (Braille); pattern and image recognition; self-learning and educational applications; living materials that change shape and feel; flexible OLED displays; full voice interaction, directional laser speakers; bionic nano chips; and cyborg components."

The Aura (02008): "The Aura concept brings together the professional, responsitory nature of the Western health care system with the personal, preventative focus of alternative therapies... The user never needs to be taught what to do with the object, but can interact with it on his [sic] own terms. While his skin is in contact with the device, different wavelengths of light and sound pass through his skin: infrared light measures blood flow, ultrasonic rays scan the resistance of his skin tissue, others capture the sound and speed of his heartbeat, the firmness of his grip."

In January, the group released a set of concepts under the nebulous rubric "The Role of Tech in 2020"...

The Personal Forcefield: "Fabrics of the future will move beyond cloth to technology-infused supermaterials. Imagine a web of woven conductive filaments and circuits made into everyday clothing that can build up enough kinetic energy generated through walking to be able to recharge a mobile phone. The same fabric has the potential to save up kinetic energy and create a personal forcefield which, when activated, could stun an attacker, unaware of the clothing’s hidden abilities."

The NanoDoor: "Nanobots, an emerging technology that works inside the body, will become a permanent fixture inside our bloodstreams from an early age. Homes will be equipped with a NanoDoor which, once entered, will reconfigure an individual’s nanobots and put the body in prime position for peak performance. Not only will such re-programming of the body’s functions serve to improve overall health, it could also be developed to enhance the body too. Going for a jog on the beach? Then grow some temporary skin-tread on your feet. Long journey ahead? Expand your bladder capacity to avoid unwanted stops on the way. Rock-climbing? Just add some length to your fingers."

The Eye Camera: "Miniaturization of electronic devices will make cameras so small that they could be easily implanted in any part of the body. A camera could be inserted into the eye, mimicking the user’s view as closely as possible and enhancing his or her vision. A wireless network connection and live content via a portal would allow others to log in and literally see the world through the user’s eyes, witnessing private and public activities."

The Digican: "Using a digital spraycan, users can "graffiti" anywhere in the world leaving messages, recommendations, and advertisements on anything from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the Great Wall of China. With the help of an augmented reality screen that can be worn like a pair of glasses, users will be able to see the virtual graffiti. Ideal for building communities and sharing information, this is the ultimate worldwide wiki, transforming public spaces into places of public expression. Content ranging from personal expression to information on a location to video diaries can be graffitied without permanent damage to historical monuments."

First Life: "The growing network of closed-circuit TV surveillance has the potential to be harnessed to create an immense 3D “virtureal” world in which real people move and interact with virtual subscribers. These virtual subscribers can inhabit a real-time location anywhere in the world, witness real-time events, interact with other virtual inhabitants and communicate with people in an actual location. Special eyewear would allow people in an actual location to view and interact with virtual participants."

Now, of all the concept designs and videos we've seen in recent months, there are typically very few that engage the tricky question of what's actually going on in the world in the future portrayed -- even though that context would have no little bearing upon the viability of the proffered design.

What we have instead with frog's latest, interestingly grim, contribution to our gallery is less augmented reality than portable fantasy. (Of course, some people manage to effect this kind of ontological makeover -- like Voltaire's indefatigably upbeat Dr Pangloss -- with sheer force of personality. Others do it with drugs. Soma, anyone?) But the point I'm getting at is that the usual backdrop for gadget concept designs, if you can call it a backdrop, is as minimalist as can be: an empty black or white background, spartan office buildings or nameless, placeless, rolling green fields against a deep blue sky; the most neutral, washed out, content-free and non-committal of settings. An imaginal vacuum. The Digital Escape by contrast, offers a glimpse, hastily remedied, of a post-collapse future; the one usually concealed in favour of bland, detail-free backdrop; the one disowned and denied by design's chronically Panglossian gizmo parade.

It is rare because it deliberately confronts, and helpfully seeks to mitigate, the depressing prospect of an outside world too horrible to face unmediated: an apocalyptic landscape dressed in more palatable garb. One could ask by what means in a collapsed society such intensive digital content would be delivered to these nifty neo-cowboy bandannas, these anonymising cybermasks, but of course their practicability isn't the point.

There's something resonant, or at least symptomatic, I think, about this fantasy injunction (however tongue-in-cheek) to put on a happy face, to don a mask, in preference to engaging -- and designing -- deeper alternatives to our most unpleasant possible paths. Still, it's unusual because it seems most product design, like most urban planning, and most corporate and government forecasting in Western economies, rests on the cosy assumption of business as usual (with perhaps a concession to contingency in the form of alternative growth rates -- low, medium, and high).

But take a deep breath, and look what happens when the mask slips.

[I got back to Honolulu last night after three weeks on the East Coast, with plenty to blog about, so watch this space...

Also, thanks for the link Natron.]

Greener Gadgets

The line between thought-provoking artifacts from the future and actual technological developments sometimes becomes oddly blurred -- as noted, for instance, last month in a comment to this post, in relation to bionic contact lenses.

Bruce Sterling at Beyond the Beyond (31 March, 02008) enthusiastically points out this cool entry from a recent design competition, Greener Gadgets...


The competition was co-organised by design blog Inhabitat, and sustainability consultancy Mark Alt + Partners, in cooperation with longstanding (since 01995) online magazine of industrial design, Core77. The comp launched on 26 December 02007, and culminated on 1 February at a conference in New York City. The design brief was as follows:

Core77 is inviting designers to explore the concept of "Greener Gadgets." Designs should seek to minimize the environmental impact of consumer electronic devices at any stage in the product lifecycle. Areas of sustainability to consider include:

1. Energy
2. Materials / Lifecycle / Recycling
3. Social & educational development

Participants are encouraged to consider their designs as part of the entire product ecosystem, and should think as holistically as possible. Designers may choose to focus their entries on a particular area of human enterprise (learning, playing, communicating, etc.), or a particular context (work, home, school, etc.), a particular material, or a specific device. Entries may also seek to create new paradigms for products and services.

Ultimately, we are looking for "great gadgets" of the greener kind.

As it happens, the first prize winner, EnerJar, an energy monitoring device, was among "not 'products' that can be purchased — but [...] a handy, downloadable DIY design that can be put together using a jam jar and other household objects."


Many of the other top entries selected, however, were not much beyond illustrated ideas. For example, the "Gravia" Gravity Based Kinetic Energy Lamp, second place getter, was described at the Inhabitat blog as "a fantastic concept - but one that has stirred up some debate across the blogosphere recently in regards to whether or not it is possible to build such a lamp right now with the technology that exists today."


Interesting, I think, that the comp's organisers used no categories differentiating the already here, from the near, from the way out. As a result, the entries range from witty branding ideas, through ambient reminders of environmental impact, to fully-blown sci-fi invention.

(Click through to Notable entries page for the sources of these selected images...)






(I'm reminded of the Forum for the Future's "Low Carbon Living" images, which spring from a comparable aspiration to think greener.)

The reality-fantasy spectrum collapses here, in a way I find quite delightful, I should add, juxtaposing products that seem immediately feasible at one end, through to ambiguously futuristic -- and perhaps impossible -- "design fiction" (Sterling's useful term) at the other.

Which is to say that, for most of the successful entries, this competition essentially comprised an ideational exercise. The stated evaluation criteria were: innovation, clarity of design, originality, form and presentation. I hope I can be forgiven for supposing (at first) that a "greener gadgets" design competition would involve submitting a feasibility statement, if not a functioning prototype. But as it turns out, entries required only three jpg images, telling the product's "story" at different levels (context, object, and details), plus a 500-word project description.

Now, I mention this not as a criticism, but simply as an observation which, may point to some implications for how we apprehend and experience technological (and, hot on its heels, social) change.

I'll explain.

With increasing numbers of people turning increasingly sophisticated (CG-enabled) design ideas loose in the mediascape, in some settings, the virtual (or hypothetical, or future) artifact and the real one have become exceedingly difficult to tell apart. Playful design concepts like the iRing (below) seem to appear more and more often in my meanderings around the web. Real or not? At a glance, there's no way to tell.

iRing | Design by Victor Soto | via Geekologie, 22 January 02008.

Not only are freelance designers engaging in this sort of public domain product development, but consultancies and big brands do too. The Nokia Morph and Adaptive Path's Charmr device are both examples recently blogged here.

A weird upshot of all this simultaneous availability of vividly imagined "future" products, in a context where rapid change has been normalised, is the subliminal (and occasionally, outright) confusion it can generate. When it comes to gadgetry, to someone without inside information, there can be a very blurry line between idea, concept, prototype, and fait accompli. Unless you pay close attention to what's happening at the cutting edge of technology -- and, to be fair, most people have enough other things going on in their lives that they don't -- it's pretty easy to mistake a hypothetical product for a real one. (The reverse is probably also true.)

For instance, a viral video temporarily set (certain excitable portions of) the geek community alight in February, because it appeared to herald the imminent arrival of an exciting new Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) from Samsung, the Korean electronics giant:



Tech news sites hastened to correct the misperception. In point of fact, the video had been produced by a college student in India for a class project.

We've been getting tipped all morning on a supposed Samsung P9 UMPC. Sorry Charlie, it's not the P9. It's not even from Samsung. As sleek and sexy as this crazy, detachable slider is, no amount of wishful thinking is going to make it more than a university design project.

~Engadget, 21 February 02008.

This ambiguity seems especially apt to occur with images (still or video) of stand-alone gadgets -- as opposed to their social or user contexts which may contain many more "moving parts", literally and figuratively. I'm referring here to the difference between depictions of gadgets themselves, and the evocation of how they change (or are changed by) their social context. As much as I rejoice in what seems to be increasing availability of ingenious possibilities, fodder for our collective imagining, compellingly and realistically portrayed -- especially when imbued with this "bright green" sensibility -- I have to say there seem to be a lot more of the former than the latter floating around.

The tendency to focus on technology itself is understandable: it's a complexity-reducing strategy for thinking about change that also plays well with our object-focused, consumption-driven economy. But "stuff" is not, I think, the true stuff of experience. Picking up on an trend noted by Allison Arieff (quoted in this recent post), I'd expect that over the coming years, the increasingly holistic, integrative, values-oriented efforts of designers -- particularly those concerned with user experience and interaction design -- will result in deeper engagement with evoking what change feels like, not just how its putative protagonist-objects look; as well as how it might occur, connecting outwardly, in complex contexts such as communities and families, as well as inwardly, addressing our interior or emotional states.

Product-centric -- and more particularly gadget-centric -- thinking surely affords some insight into the landscape of alternative futures, providing possible fragments of preferred (presumably sustainable, i.e. non-self-destructive) scenarios. But the key word is fragments; whereas the design challenge before us is systemic, complex, multi-dimensional, and massively distributed. No amount of gadgetry, however green, can substitute for addressing futures systemically.