Ksenia Kopalova
Arts University Bournemouth
Towards the politics of photogrammetry archives: Polycam
Panel: Technology
With continued development of photogrammetry software like Polycam, 3D scanning techniques become increasingly democratised and facilitate public engagement in collective archive- and heritage-making. The content and the character of these public archives, however, demonstrate a peculiar amalgamation of drastically different kinds of archive-making strategies: individual-targeted ones akin to those typical for family photo albums – on the one hand, and scientific research-oriented ones – on the other.
The paper will address the particularities of these amalgamations through taking an initial approach to examining the power structures and ideologies underpinning the visuals presented by photogrammetry archives. It will analyse the issues of digital mistake in the process of collective photogrammetry archive-making, the narratives of digital 3D objects and their (dis)embodiments, the specifics of their physicalities, and the interplay of absence and presence in digital archives. Drawing upon the texts by Hito Steyerl, Lev Manovich, Annet Dekker, Gemma Anderson, the work will examine the ‘Explore’ section of Polycam, which is a publicly shared archive of 3D-documented objects and locations made using the aforementioned software. It will also engage with the issue by analysing an illustrative response to the Polycam-scanned objects and landscapes - 2D hand-drawn imagery, which, in its underlying process, attempts to highlight the ideological implications behind 3D scanning as a technology.
Ultimately the paper suggests that such digital archives are an ongoing, collective, distributed, participatory, active process of knowledge-making underpinned by a consumerist logic of cultural production with militaristic and pornographic undertones, thus presenting a blend of institutional and individual gaze as mediated by 3D scanning technology.
Ksenia Kopalova is an illustrator and a researcher with a background in sociology, currently working as a Lecturer in Illustration at the Arts University Bournemouth. She is a founder of .RAW, a non-profit online magazine locating illustration within cross-disciplinary connections in arts and humanities, sketching out lines between people, projects, and ideas that oscillate between the digital and the physical. Ksenia's current professional interests revolve around the idea of illustration as knowledge-making. Her personal projects mainly explore memory- and place-making strategies.