Ideas for My Contribution to the Final Class Project

I am most interested in using my background skills to aid in the “peopling” aspect of our class project. At the same time, I would be willing to help teach other students how to use software tools that I am familiar with for their individual contributions. Likewise, I would also be willing to help integrate smaller mini-projects into a single multimedia website.

Idea #1: 3d representation of ceremonial (or day-to-day) clothing/costumes for people and/or animals
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Would require creating or obtaining basic 3d models of Incan peoples and llamas (to which the costume elements would be added)

• These shouldn’t be too detailed
• Could be generic and slightly cartoony (to avoid issues of ethnographic portrayal)

- Could be broken up into:

• 3d models of the costume pieces

1. Uncolored at first
2. Examples: animal pelt worn around the shoulders, headdress made of feathers

• 2d textures of the costume colors and patterns

1. Would be used to color the 3d pieces
2. Example: jaguar spots, pattern of multi-colored squares

- Costume elements could be generated by looking at fragments of textile artifacts from the area and attempting to extrapolate possible designs (like in Redknap’s paper)
- Or, costume elements could be generated by looking at ceremonial costumes that are still used today

Idea #2: 3d representation of temples (could be huacas) within and outside the city of Cuzco
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Could be broken up into:

• 3d models of the temple architecture

1. Uncolored at first
2. Example: long, narrow corridor with supporting columns

• 2d textures of the temple materials

1. Would be used to color the 3d architecture
2. Different textures for different times of the month (snow-dusted or not)
3. Example: repeating, offset stones

- Final results could be peopled with the 3d models from Idea #1 (and Idea #3)
- First person shooter (FPS) camera could be used to navigate the final product

• Models could be imported into a game engine for additional features such as:

1. Ambient noise (talking, music, crunching of footsteps, fire crackling)
2. “Drunk” effect (lots of high contrast colors and motion blur)

Idea #3: Motion capture of a ceremonial dance (or ritual path) applied to a 3d character
- Programs to use: Motion Capture Software from SIG lab
- Would require at least one person (the mocap model) to learn and perform the dance moves or ritual path

• Could videotape a demonstration by native peoples to use as reference
• Could try and extrapolate steps by looking at existing video footage
• Could try and extrapolate steps by reading through existing written documentation

- If learning dance moves or ritual paths proves to be too difficult, record daily activities instead

• Farming movements (digging, planting)
• Feeding animals
• Conversational gestures

- Motion capture data could be applied to the 3d models from Idea #1

Idea #4: 3d representation of known Ceque huacas
- Programs to use: Maya or SketchUp
- Use images of existing huacas to create 3d approximations
- Same person could be in charge of both the structure and color of these models, since many huacas (like stone pillars or carvings) don’t have intricate colors or textures

Readings for week of 10/19 (notes)

"Imagining Prehistory: Pictorial Reconstructions of the Way We Were", Mann
- there are few clues as to the original environment in which early humans lived
- discovery/analysis of fossil evidence that documents human evolution --> major focus of popular science (New York Times, television programs)
- typical scenes in popular science: made-up moderns, imagined environments, burying dead, painting, foraging, Neandertals, Cro-Magnons, australopithecines
- what attracts us to the study of our ancestors?

1. curiosity: we wish to know more
2. reassurance: that we've changed from brutish creatures --> civilized existence
3. romance and mystery
4. isolation from culture/family (due to technology): has created a desire to seek out ancestral roots

- whatever the reason, our evolutionary history has been featured in all sorts of media: newspapers, magazine articles, television programs, films, cookbooks ("neanderthin" <-- oh jeez) - why has this become a recent phenomenon?

1. recent finds: for example, discovering "Zinjanthropus" in 1959 (or other relatively recent announcements of very early hominids)
2. emergence of new media forms or existing media forms adopting new subject matter: popular science magazines and television stations
3. recent genetic studies: human origins research, comparative genetic studies, and thus the assertion that all living people are similar biologically

- most artistic reconstructions feature environmental settings that come from the imagination of the artist
- critique of Moser's Ancestral Images: the Iconography of Human Evolution (1998)

• in her book, she traces the historical developments of artistic reconstructions (many of which were created before pre-historic evidence was discovered)
  
• first set (early artistic representations): depict things like pastoral scenes & caves; people have modern physical appearance (body type), but use past "artifacts" like animal bones, furs, clubs - these artifacts are early icons for the primitive; other major themes include pair bonding, language, and fire
  
• next set (16th - 18th centuries): still portray people with a modern physical appearance; still use icons like fur garments & clubs; many relate to a biblical theme
• next set (mid 19th century): at this point, the existence of prehistory was accepted; people depicted as grotesque (non-European) instead of modern in terms of physical appearance - this new imagery reinforces the believe that white European culture is advanced and superior; icons still persist (example: 1940s textbook compares Neandertal skull with those of Australians/Africans instead of modern Europeans)
• final set (past 75 years): least satisfactory part of the book - Moser doesn't say much about modern interpreters of the past, nor about their impact on both academic and public visualization of early humans

- reconstructions of the prehistoric past impact how we conceptualize our past
- The Neanderthal Flint Workers (painting by Knight from 1924; Moser mentions it in her book)

• here, the anatomical details and icons are not as important as the facial expressions and body postures of the subjects
• they look unhappy, as if watching imminent extinction
• these are savage brutes with no connection to modern humans

- versus a painting in 1985 issue of National Geographic (by Matternes; Moser mentions it in her book)

• central figure is a woman
• the faces and bodies of the subjects imply that they are competent and capable
• these are suitable human ancestors

- why does Moser not discuss this dichotomy?
- usually she is very insightful when it comes to these things - consider the following examples:

• 1992: she examined reconstructions of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neandertal skeleton; concluded that variations in reconstruction reflected the 2 competing theories (at the time) about the origins of modern human species - pre-Neandertal or pre-Sapiens?
• 1999: she examined scenes of the human evolutionary past portrayed in museum dioramas; concluded that their continued use is problematic, despite their popularity as a means for relaying info to non-specialists - they produce stereotypes, present singular visions of the world, and are mostly imaginary

- Moser isn't being critical enough in her 1998 book; readers might get the impression that she finds "ancestral images" agreeable (which is definitely not the case if you look at her other books)
- the recreation of our ancestors remains highly subjective
- problem: the imagined elements of an image (facial expressions, hair distribution, etc) are usually the most memorable parts of the scene
- problem: most of these recreations still use icons that were established long ago


"Archaeological Representation: The Visual Conventions for Constructing Knowledge about the Past", Moser
- knowledge of the past is constructed through different modes of representation

• academic modes: archaeological writing, conference presentations, illustration
  
• non-academic modes: museum displays, popular books, print media, fiction writing, film, television

- little research has been done to examine the latter and how it shapes archaeological knowledge/interpretation
- non-academic forms of presentation are not merely by-products of academic research - they have a life of their own
- the ways in which we write the past play a significant role in determining its meaning
- "archaeological poetics": the devices used to communicate archaeological knowledge
- are academic modes of representation more important in shaping archaeological knowledge or are non-academic modes more important?
- archaeology has been slow to recognize the role of popular representations

• public archaeology isn't considered an important field
• popular representations are seen as not having a significant impact on the production of knowledge about the past
• thus, those who use academic modes (like archaeologists) think they are immune from the non-academic modes
• this exemplifies a false distinction between science and culture!

- popular images of the past are often seen as a source of amusement for academics, even though the commit great injustices to the ancestors they portray
- many times academics assume that these representations are unproblematic and don't require any interpretation
- but this view is incorrect - these representations influence the wider public's perception of archaeology and even affect the archaeologists (who are, whether they like it or not, members of the wider public too)
- popular representations contribute to the process of making meaning; they make their own statements and have the ability to create ideas about the past
- they even shape the ideas of professionals (scientists are driven by the myths)
- a lot of the scientific community uses a "diffusionist model" to explain why culture and science are separated (knowledge is created by scientists and then diffused/reused into popular culture via a one-way process)
- the diffusionist model is wrong!

• for example: the dinosaur imagine has become a vehicle for both reporting scientific knowledge and for regulating and redefining the process of scientific thinking and discovery
• another example: drawings of hominid ancestors constitute theories about human evolution all by themselves

- politics and social values (like class and gender) shape representations of the past, both academic and popular
- many different genres of communicating the past: illustration, museum display, site presentation, film, magazines, souvenirs, re-enactment, children's books, computer / multimedia, 3d reconstructions
- out of these, visual images are the most influential
- archaeologists cannot escape this influence - they continue to fit their ideas into established (iconic) pictorial frameworks
- contemporary society is fascinated with the visual
- in pictorial representations, meaning is produced through a visual language of communicating the past (i.e. pictorial conventions)
- visual representations are not second-rate illustrations of ideas - they have the ability to convey information, pleasure, displeasure, style, consumption, and power relations
- likewise, they have the ability to communicate meanings that we may not be aware of or wish to convey
- pictorial conventions that appeal to our sense of reasoning:

1. iconography - representations contain icons; for example, 1548 woodcut in a German translation of Vitruvius' De architectura establishes fire as a symbol for the transition of human ancestors from brutes to civilized beings; icons are frequently repeated, function like stereotypes, and reduce information to its bare essentials; they communicate an idea immediately and effectively, but this idea is restricted by lack of explanation
2. autonomy - representations have a life of their own; for example, 1585 painting of an ancient Pict by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues exploits creative freedom at the expense of historical accuracy - based on an ambiguous piece of knowledge, its subject is lavished in decorative, detailed tattoos - this artistic choice might garner greater artistic success, but it came from the artist's imagination; creative afterthoughts like these go on to influence subsequent conceptions even though they are innacurate
   
3. longevity - representations replicate and recycle aspects of earlier images; for example, 1616 engraving of ancient Germans by Philip Cluverius shows its 17th century audience something they are already familiar with; iconic images are extremely difficult to replace because they are usually visually successful and pre-constructed (thus, no extra work involved with creating something new)
   
4. authenticity - representations incorporate as much detailed evidence as possible; for example, 1779 illustration of ancient Britons by Joseph Strutt aimed to correct previous inaccuracies by using meticulous detail and "composite reconstruction" (a wide range of ancestors in one scene); variety and realism create the illusion of authenticity
5. singularity - representations depict a precise moment in time in order to convey some essence of what life was like in the past; for example, 1887 illustration in a book by Henri Cleuziou depicts an engaging and active "man vs. beast" theme; the problem with singularity is that it is limited to one view of the past - a lot is left out
6. dramatism - representations have a long-lasting impact on the viewer; for example, 1888 painting of prehistoric France by Paul Jamin is constructed to shock and entertain its viewers by capturing aspects of human experience which cannot be captured using words; dramatism creates a sense of immediacy that attracts attention, regardless of the subject's origin; the problem with dramatism is that it reduces the importance of background props (usually important artifacts)
   
7. persuasiveness - representations are full of familiar ideas that appeal to our sense of reason; for example, 1924 painting of ancient artists by Charles Knight portrays its subjects in a familiar "art studio" setting, despite the fact that there is no archaeological evidence to support it; in the attempt to create persuasive representations of the past, artists and archaeologists slot archeological evidence into familiar pictorial compositions
   

Taking a Break from the Archaeology Research...

I found this week's reading ("Reanimating the Dead: Reconstruction of Expressive Faces from Skull Data" by Kahler, et al.) to be very interesting. Being a DMDer, these ACM papers are more my style. Yeah, yeah...I'll admit that I skipped over the majority of Section 4.2, which talks about the math involved in the procedure. But something about this research just pulled me in. Maybe it's because my senior project could potentially add hair to the reconstructed faces? Something else worth noting is the similarities of this "art form" with those we discussed in class (like Pate's paintings). "The process is thus highly dependent on rules of thumb, the experience of the artist, and some guesswork," says the paper. The same thing could be said about Pate's work too.

The paper discusses a technique of computerized facial reconstruction using what is refered to as the "tissue depth method." This involves using statistical tissue thickness measurements at specific points on the face to guide how the face is modeled on top of the skull. In this case, the facial "modeling" consists of deforming a template mesh head. For non-computerized versions of the method, the facial "modeling" consists of applying and shaping clay layers to a cast of the skull. There are several advantages of using Kahler's computerized method. First of all, it is a lot faster than the non-computerized alternative (taking about an hour to do vs. "many hundreds"). Secondly, the computerized reconstruction process makes it possible to easily create many "variants" for a single skull, the most common being related to the build of the reconstructed person - skinny, medium, or obese. Finally, the results produced by Kahler (et al) allow for simple facial animations (such as smiles or frowns) to be applied to the reconstructed faces, which "could be helpful for identification purposes." The paper focuses on applying its facial reconstruction technique to the field of forensic science and criminology. However, I definitely see its application for digital "peopling" of reconstructed scenes/architecture of the past.

Here's the general step-by-step approach used by Kahler (et al) to reconstruct a face, given the skull of the person and details about where it was found and what it was found with:

1. In cooperation with an anthropologist, extrapolate more information from the remains, including an estimation of age, ancestry, sex, and stature.
2. Scan the skull (using a volume or range scanner) to obtain a 3d representation (a triangle mesh). The original data should be simplified as little as possible.
3. Equip the skull model with landmarks (which look like the "dowel" tissue depth markers used by tranditional tissue depth reconstructors). Each landmark is associated with a vector in surface normal direction and is scaled to local tissue thickness based on statistical data.
4. Deform a template head model according to the landmark data. This model consists of several "layers", including the skin surface and virtual muscles right below it. A mass-spring system connects the layers together in a realistic fashion, which comes in handy for animating simple expressions later on.
5. Add more landmarks (if necessary) in places where tissue thickness is near-constant. This is accomplished by interpolating existing landmarks in terms of position and thickness.
6. Apply empirical heuristics about the shape relations between skin and skull to the model (for example, rules governing the width of the nose, length of the nose, width of the mouth, thickness of the lips, etc). Update the landmark configuration accordingly.
7. Apply expressions (smile or frown) to the face by adjusting the virtual muscles, which then pull on the skin layer according to the mass-spring relationship between the two layers.
8. Add colors (or textures) to the skin, lips, and eyebrows of the face model.
   

Here are the layers of the template head model, as described in 4 (I thought this was one of the coolest parts of Kahler's technique):

Excerpt from Assignment #2

For assignment #2, I reviewed the February 2008 National Geographic Magazine article “The Black Pharaohs”, written by Robert Draper. Incidentally, I didn't know it was about Nubian (African) rulers when I first picked it out (I guess I thought "black" was referring to some kind of dark religious practice or something). Anyway, one of my favorite parts about the article was its artwork and photography. Here's what I had to say about these images in my paper:

First of all, the article is supplemented with an excellent collection of artistically pleasing artwork and photography. Most of these images utilize bright, high-contrast colors, in addition to tight framing and low camera angles, in order to give their subjects a commanding, noteworthy presence. Of particular note is the inclusion of two paintings by artist Gregory Manchess, each a conceptual snapshot of a scene that might have occurred during the black pharaohs’ rule. Manchess’s artwork employs several successful techniques for capturing his viewer’s attention, including a focus on dynamic action and atmosphere, complex background detail, and a subtle interaction between the painted characters and the observer.

(Battle of King Piye. Yes, he was black, and yes, you can totally see up that one guy's "skirt".)

There was one picture, however, that kind of stood out from the rest. I didn't address it in my paper; maybe I should have.

(Your stereotypical, down-and-dirty, thrill-seeking archaeologist, hehe.)

Well, maybe he's not too stereotypical (maybe archaeologists are always sweaty and hunched over), but what's with the locals walking around in the background? This reminds me of Gero and Root's observation - "Readers [of National Geographic] are also bombarded with photographic images of 'the Other', the non-American, often manipulated to maximize contrast with American lives and values." Now, maybe these guys just happened to walk into the shot, or maybe the photographer was trying to get a different point across. Still, there is a "contrast."