2013
Nylon (white), 3D print
(Selective Laser Sintering SLS),
aluminium sulphate crystal, 13 x 17 x 25 cm

SLOW SELFIE is the first of a trilogy of works, all titled Slow Selfie, Slow Selfie  II and III. They articulate an environmentally controlled, slow growing self-portrait using the artist’s own body in the form of Magnetic Resonance Image data. Similar to analog photography, using a chemical conversion, reducing silver halides into silver metal, the essential chemical conversion in photography, the work utilises the chemical process of experimental crystal condensation into the 3D printed data-set as the emergence of the second layer of crystalline skin and gestalt.

The process is environmentally reactive to temperature and minute fluctuation on the surface of the submerged 3D printed substrate. This emerging of a crystalline mask, amalgamated into the porous surface of the 3D printed skeletal medical dataset is accompanied by a continuous loop of 3D projection mapping and recording, questioning the ability of recognition and interpretation as well as stimulating and inhibiting the crystalline growth. Slow Selfie comments on the perpetual cyclical emergence of human vanity in feed-back looped sedimentation of Aluminium Sulphate Crystals and projection mapping.

The work is articulated in the tradition of portraiture yet at the same time is in opposition and dialogue to the vanity and obsession today with the digital portrait, devaluated through myriad of shared websites and diluted by the unconscious im-age culture of instant visual gratification.