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Breathing Archives: Immersive Nonfiction Storytelling through 3D Capture

Deniz Tortum

Breathing Archives: Immersive Nonfiction Storytelling through 3D Capture 

The 3D capture of the real world creates new opportunities for documentary storytelling. 3D captured objects and environments have a unique relationship to objectivity and indexicality that is distinct from video and photography. Some techniques used in this field are point cloud, laser scanning, and photogrammetry. Each of these methods involves creating 3D, virtual objects using information gathered from the physical environment. These objects are not only virtual images, but instructions for the construction and manipulation of such images. As such, they occupy a middle ground between image and object.

This presentation explores the role of 3D-scanning the real world in documentary storytelling. My research builds on Jens Schroter’s theory and aesthetics of the “transplane image”, Virtual Reality experiences such as Phantom, a point cloud representation of a rainforest, and the writings of media theorists Alexander Galloway and Ian Bogost on documentary games.

I’d like to present my research with the 3D laser scans and photogrammetric models I acquired for an upcoming project at Cerrahpasa hospital in Istanbul. I suggest two domains for the creative use of 3D-scans: spatial and responsive.