Art, Crime & Algorithms
Featured in:
The design Film Festival, U.K. 2020
D-lab Tokyo Gallery, Japan 2019
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan 2019
Production year: 2019
Film running time: 00:07:22:00
Mediums: short film produced using a combination of CGI and real footage • film shot with a Sony α7 III and FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens • physical props made using 2.5D and 3D printing technologies with PLA filaments and airbrush inks • installation tables made using 2.5D printing, MDF and sainless steel rods • packages produced using 2.5D printing and CNC milled polystyrene foam.
The design Film Festival, U.K. 2020
D-lab Tokyo Gallery, Japan 2019
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan 2019
Production year: 2019
Film running time: 00:07:22:00
Mediums: short film produced using a combination of CGI and real footage • film shot with a Sony α7 III and FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS lens • physical props made using 2.5D and 3D printing technologies with PLA filaments and airbrush inks • installation tables made using 2.5D printing, MDF and sainless steel rods • packages produced using 2.5D printing and CNC milled polystyrene foam.
Art, Crime & Algorithms is a film part of a larger research project Nestor Pestana developed at Kyoto Institute of Technology in partnership with Casio: Authentic Fictions: speculative futures for 2.5D printing. The project culminated with an installation in Tokyo.
2.5D printing can be defined as low-relief textured printing delivered on flat surfaces. It sits between 2D and 3D printing, hence it’s name. The technology is currently being developed by commercial research groups, such as that at Casio, in regulated environments. As they develop further, the move from these controlled environments to more complex and diverse iterations from the public will begin and new problems will arise.
This project, and particularly the film, aimed to investigate possible future applications for 2.5D printing technologies. It started by imagining what would happen if extremely high resolution 2.5D printers and colour scanners were combined with image inpainting algorithms and available to the public. If in the future, 2.5D printing technologies had sufficient resolution and could use any pigment or ink, we could potentially see art forgeries being produced by these efficient image inpainting algorithms. Conversely such algorithms could also be trained to identify art forgeries, by analyzing the same patterns that were used to create the art forgery itself. These complex virtuous and vicious cycles are very much part of any technology, and this is what this project has explored.
2.5D printing can be defined as low-relief textured printing delivered on flat surfaces. It sits between 2D and 3D printing, hence it’s name. The technology is currently being developed by commercial research groups, such as that at Casio, in regulated environments. As they develop further, the move from these controlled environments to more complex and diverse iterations from the public will begin and new problems will arise.
This project, and particularly the film, aimed to investigate possible future applications for 2.5D printing technologies. It started by imagining what would happen if extremely high resolution 2.5D printers and colour scanners were combined with image inpainting algorithms and available to the public. If in the future, 2.5D printing technologies had sufficient resolution and could use any pigment or ink, we could potentially see art forgeries being produced by these efficient image inpainting algorithms. Conversely such algorithms could also be trained to identify art forgeries, by analyzing the same patterns that were used to create the art forgery itself. These complex virtuous and vicious cycles are very much part of any technology, and this is what this project has explored.
KIT Project Team:
Project Director - Julia Cassim
KIT Museum and Archives - Professor Seishi Namiki
Guidance - Professor Takayuki Ikegawa
Digital Fabrication Lab - Tomohiro Inoue
Woodworking Room - Shin Yamashita
Film credits:
Actors - Yuichi Ogura as lead researcher, Takashi Kawashima as news reporter, Mimi as museum officer and Yoshimura Emiko as lab assistant
Camera - Tomohiro Tanaka
Sound design and mix - Daniele Zazza
Supervising sound editor - Taylor Lewin
Sound recordist - Milena Resiewitz Kaneko
Lights - Associate Professor Yasushi Ichikawa
Production assistance - Takuji Yoshida
Acknowledgements:
Professor Natsuki Oka
Professor Teruhisa Hochin
Associate Professor Wei Wei Du
Chisato Jimura
Hiroki Yokoyama
Otto Raila
Haruka Goi
Euphemia Franklin