Intalgio Project 2 Update

I'm working on the 3d geometry for the "virtual landscape" of my print project and an ocean simulation because I'm interested to see how I can translate it through this process. I might add some text element and figures, especially since I'm required to use at least one line technique, I haven't really decided what I'll draw on the plate where I use those techniques. I'll be rendering out the 3d scene in passes, probably a combination of flat diffuse + ambient occlusion and another for the reflections, then they'll be printed onto transparency and exposed with a UV point light onto photosensitive film that has been applied to the surface of the copper plates. The multiple pass print process is very similar to modern compositing in the digital workflow; layers are added cumulatively, affecting the preceding state of the image, colour and transparency are modified to achieve the desired effect when overlaid. I'm amused by the idea of using a 3d application like Maya or Softimage to create render passes which I will use to produce physically existent plates and pass physically through a press with and onto real material, the same way I would digitally composite the layers in Photoshop or After Effects. There's something very funny and interesting about using modern technology to ultimately produce matrices to use in a final process that was the cutting edge technology in image generation 500 years ago, rescued from anachronism and obsolescence by the kind of innovations that make this possible and our continued interest in methodology, of course.

I'm still trying to figure out how to convey the idea of a users engaging in the process of creating the new "urban" or post-urban space, though I think the digital environment on its own is interesting enough to satisfy the requirements of the project.

"The history of city growth is, in essence, man's eager search for ease of human interaction. Our large modern urban nodes are, in their very nature, massive communications systems."
-Webber, M. 1964. Urban Place and the Non-Place Urban Realm. 

"Invisible spaces now dominate, as the city of the modernist era is replaced by the non-place urban realm and outer space is superseded by cyberspace." - Bukatman, S. 1993. Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction.