“That body schema locates us within the perceived world; it forms the basis for our sense of our boundaries, where I stop and you begin; how responsive I am to outside information and how permeable to human intercourse. The shaping process is defined and transmitted in our social institutions: religion, the military, fashion and the media, sports, art, orthopedics. They reflect the tenacious forces of gender, ethnicity, and social class. Styles of shaping bodies parallel other expressions of a society’s tastes in such forms as architecture, music, dance, and art.”
(Johnson)
Last monday, I’d be lying if I said our class was productive. Perhaps people may have been antsy from the weekend’s activities, we had a hard time transitioning our collective focus, and productivity seemed to be sparse. Although there was the exception of the addition of the scanner that Jon and Michael brought in. I think the addition of this tool will bode well for interrogating virtuality versus materiality because it really captivated everyone’s attention. I have been meaning to get .stl scans of my body because of the possibilities of the creation of objects that interact with the body’s structure. At least in my observations people found difficulty in getting the scans of their bodies to co-operate in the Blender software when changing the position of limbs, which makes me question the feasibility of working with scaled models of the body in order to make material to interact with it outside of the virtual. I have been very obsessed with the idea of totems and how they relate to the makeup of the ever evolving+advancing mind and body, so I would like to get a 3d rendering of myself, send it to shapeways and turn it into a usb of my memories in the forms of .jpegs, .mp4s, .mp3s, and .stls, making a physical totem for my virtual totems.