Final Project: ANALOG TECH
The act of making and the relationship between tools old and new
Figuring out a way
Failure has been a large part of the past semester, I have learned that it is at the core of the act of making. I wanted my final project to reflect the act of making in someway.
The inspiration for my final project was to explore the relationships between tools and outputs. The concept of making “thing A” in order to output “thing B” stuck with me as we explored over the semester. I set out to explore the relationships that analog and digital outputs can play. I wanted to use this project to learn about laser cutting and augmented reality (AR), and incorporate letterpress printing into the flow.
Tools, Time, Tech
Considering my goal of illustrating tools and outputs I landed on the idea of letterpress printing a poster and incorporating an augmented reality (AR) component. I have been interested in exploring analog and digital tools and see how they can play together. Having access to 3D printers and a laser cutter I wanted to use them for their technological strengths.
Factoring in the rather short time frame of three weeks, I decided to use a font rather than design my own lettering. This time saving move also allowed me to use a chromatic typeface, a two color font with a resulting third color overlay. A favorite contemporary font, Hobeaux Rococeaux by OH no Type Company fit the requirements. Wanting to use a laser cutter I set out to make wood type. A laser cutter can cut intricate shapes far better than traditional tools used to make wood type. The other bonus of using this method is no hand tool trimming is required.
Process
Not wanting to spend a lot of money on wood for my first attempt at making wood type I ended up getting some balsa wood. Short on time I found what I could locally resulting in a limited selection. I ended up with a 2 inch thick piece, twice as thick as I needed but cheaper then buying two 1 inch thick pieces. Splitting the wood in half while not that hard was time consuming and labor intensive.
In retrospect it was not worth the money saved and the type was far from perfect.
The process of laser cutting was surprisingly straight forward. The laser cutter is more of an engraving tool then a cutting tool at least in the context of making wood type. I worked in Adobe Illustrator a vector based program. The laser cutter operator had me save-out my files as .png(s). It was the first time either of us had cut wood type so the operator cut the file on some scrap acrylic first.
I learned that the laser can’t be adjusted for the depth of the cut but rather the level of power. This affects the lasers pulse rate, the more pulses the closer the cuts. One pass of the laser did not result in a deep of enough cut needed to print with so a second pass was made. In retrospect a third pass might have resulted in a printing surface. Each pass took roughly 44 mins.
Cutting the type to size went fairly smooth and was quicker than splitting the wood. It was at this time I realized I should have utilized the laser to cut crop marks. The final step to the wood type was sealing them with a shellac.
The medium is the message
The process of the project informed the messaging of my printed posters an AR components. Early on I knew I wanted to print the phrase HELLO WORLD.
“A ‘Hello, World!’ program generally is a computer program that outputs or displays the message ‘Hello, World!’. Such a program is very simple in most programming languages, and is often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language. It is often the first program written by people learning to code.”
Wanting to add an additional component I landed on the idea of making my own emoji. I liked the relationship of dingbats and emoji. One of my favorite emojis is 🖖 which means live long and prosper.
They Live, AR inspiration
John Carpenters 1988 science-fiction action thriller had AR at the core of its storyline. It wasn't until I finished producing the wood type (and backup 3D printed type) that I got the idea to make a second print with the phrase “MAKE ANYTHING”. With not much time left I decided to use LEGO as the medium. LEGO is one of the first maker tools western culture children are exposed to. This would also allow for the black and white aesthetic of They Live. I made a list of possible “MAKE _______” phrases to use for the AR. It’s funny how ideas and influences are lingering in the background and come-out at random times in the creative process.
With an unplanned second poster completed I started to concept for the second original poster’s AR component. I landed on illustrating the chromatic types layers and movable type used to print it. This under-the-hood, in color approach I thought would work great for the 3D feature available on the AR platform used. I also like the juxtaposition when displayed next to the “MAKE ANYTHING” poster, a black & white 2D AR component poster.
Unity was my original plan for developing the AR components to my posters. However with time at a premium and having researched my options I ended up using the Artivive platform and App. The platform is really easy to use and is geared towards visual artists. They have it broken down into two steps, three if you want to go the 3D route. The first step is uploading a trigger image. This is an image of the poster/art work you are going to add the AR component to. This allows their app to recognize the image and overlay the AR. The second step is uploading a .gif or video file. For this project I made animations in Adobe Photoshop and save .gif(s). For the “HELLO WORLD” poster I added the 3D option. For this third step you are adding layers on top of the second step. The Artivive platform allows for .png(s) to be placed on a x,y,z axis similarly to working in a CAD program. This involved several rounds of tweaking to find the distance of images popping off the poster.
Gallery Exhibition
Showcasing the tools used to make my posters was a no brainer. The juxtaposition of a sign press (a type of letterpress press) and an actively printing 3D printer side by side sparked the idea to hang ten of each poster in rows. This would visual represent the mass production aspect of letterpress printing in contrast to the slow process of 3D printing.
Getting viewers to use/view the AR component was also a challenge. I utilized the materials Artivive provide and made QR code print outs. I also made use of the studios iPhone and download the app and made available on a stool.
