Physicalizing the Image, Physicalizing the Digital

Abstract

Radically shifting personal experience of the visual image from virtual worlds like Second Life, from flat screens, cinema, and paper to physical forms, subverts the predominance of the digital realm. Living on the surface of the screen minimizes the tactility of materials and the resonance of memory and meaning embodied in objects. Digital 3D cinema, 3D television, and 3D cameras are precursors at the threshold of transforming digital into physical. The image flexes from screen to object with 3D printers and CNC machines. In the medical profession, computer 3D images from CT scans are transformed to remotely controlled, physical surgeries. Recently thinking experiments use brain activity to remotely control robotic arms. Vehicles for physicalizing the image from paper, screen, and from one’s imagination and thinking in the brain, manifest three-dimensional, palpable, sensory, tactile, objectified experiences. How will this phenomena transform modes of digital communication, physical interactions, and production on both the global and the personal scales? How will the material role of the computer prescribe new creative activities, new modes of artistic expression?