#spline 3d

Artist Statement

My speculative maquette is for Mollusca, which is an outdoor gallery space for art exhibitions in harbourside/coastal cities.

Throughout the design process, I envisioned Mollusca as a tribute to the histories of marine science and their relationship to art.

To create a site-specific gallery space, I considered both form and materials, focusing on how they would contribute to its purpose – exhibiting marine-themed artworks – and its interactions with the surrounding environment.

The design itself features two components:

A twisted platform that visitors will walk across to see the works on display.

Small hubs organised in a row along each edge of the platform. Most of these hubs will have artworks displayed on the exterior wall (e.g. photographs, illustrations, paintings, prints or films without audio) while others will have information plaques accompanying each work (these plaques can be replaced depending on the specific exhibition and its works).

The biomorphic curvatures in the design are modelled after Phylliroe pelagic nudibranchs (platform) and Cyerce sea slugs (hubs), evident in both the CGI and clay models of my maquette. The platform, with its twisted shape, mirrors the dynamic motions of pelagic nudibranchs swimming in the ocean as well as waves in the coastal sea. I also drew inspiration from the illustrations of biologist Ernst Haeckel and the works of fashion designer Iris Van Herpen.

Initially, I imagined Mollusca’s platform to be constructed from an opaque material, with organic patterns – resembling the organs of pelagic nudibranchs – sculpted or painted onto both sides.

However, I later decided to carry the design influence of marine molluscs onto Mollusca’s hypothetical materiality.

The colour visualisations of the maquette – which I created by digitally painting over screenshots of the CGI model (taken at different angles) – depict the potential materials:

Translucent materials (iridescent glass for the platform and frosted acrylic for the hubs) interacting with the surrounding light, inspired by that of pelagic nudibranchs, some Cyerce species, and other marine molluscs (e.g. deep-sea cephalopods).

Colour-changing LED lights are embedded into both structures, which activate at nighttime to guide visitors walking on the platform and to mirror the luminescent patterns (bioluminescence, iridescence, etc.) of various marine molluscs.

I planned for Mollusca to be displayed in an oceanside area of a harbourside/coastal city (e.g. in Sydney’s Barangaroo or Singapore’s Marina Bay). The reason for this is that cities have a relationship to the ocean, which facilitates trade, tourism and agriculture/aquaculture in multiple ways. However, this relationship also encompasses the ocean’s influence on the creative arts, both past and present.

Digital concepts (Procreate - traced from Spline 3D models)

Diorama - I told sunset about you

Teh's home

23.12.28

I added too many textures and killed this poor web app XD but i was able to add a simple interaction where you can change the scene from day to "night". I had a second light as a moon, and the poor webapp stopped working (although that may have more to do with my computer and my internet connection than with the webapp itself...)

However, I consider myself convinced of Spline app's value, espeically for short and sweet projects! The event and state handling were really easy once I figured them out, which allows you to have a lot of control. I only utilized the transition event for this model.

23.12.27_2

Today I worked on my spline model some more! Today got pretty far off the tutorial, although I did make the cute little easel he modeled! I wanted to try making a translucent material to emulate hanji paper for my window. I’m struggling with creating the proper shadow as a result, but I’m sure after reading the docs a bit more I’ll figure it out :)