Totems

Totems
3D Printed Forms, Inkjet Prints
2005


“Totems” consists of three 3D printed forms reminiscent of impossible sex toys, along with three flat representations of the same forms printed on photography paper.

The forms in “Totem” were developed by analyzing online pornography viewing habits. Custom software was written to sniff all incoming Web traffic at a discreet location, sorting packets by destination IP address, time, and source IP address or domain name (if available). Domain names and IP addresses were checked by hand for pornographic content with non-pornographic sites culled from the sorted data.

An application was then written in Processing to model the data (thumbnail 4 above shows the model for “Work Safe?”). Time was represented by the vertical axis, with each model symbolizing a single day. Each form was vertically cropped to create variance in height. Individual bands generally represented time spent on a single site (although in some cases rapid clicking through many sites resulted in band overlap): the thicker the band, the more time spent. The radius of an individual band was logarithmically determined by the amount of data downloaded from the corresponding site.

Models were examined individually and metaphors applied to what were determined to be interesting forms. “Quickie” was so named because there was only a brief concentration of pornographic Web viewing over the course of one day. In “Work Safe?” it appeared as though large concentrations of pornographic Web viewing took place at the beginning and end of the day, bookending brief blips between 9 AM and 5 PM. The name “Vacation” was chosen for what appeared to be a full day of pornographic Web viewing. Further, the form was inverted manually as a reflection of the introverted nature of such activity.

Chosen forms were exported to Rhino, where they were lathed, hollowed, and printed.


Quickie Detail (68 KB)
Work Safe? Detail (84 KB)
Vacation Detail (77 KB)

via Tree-Axis