The Seated Artist

Dear Reader,

After the success of my self portrait Now you see me, now you don’t: A sculpture of Alice Crane, my classmate Klaudia suggested that we record what I had done on a video. With Klaudia’s assistance we set up in the creative lab with a camera and tripod.

We recorded exactly what I had done off camera, which was me stepping out of my wheelchair and leaving the label on the seat. It was very powerful to re-enact this moment and see it on film. Seeing the impact this had on video led to further experimentation. We took a few short videos of me sitting in the chair deep in thought and another of my chair after I had left.

In this video of just my chair, Klaudia inadvertently captured a conversation between me and one of my peers as I spoke freely about the experiences I have faced as a wheelchair user. Although this wasn’t intended it added further depth to the recording. The words held more power as you couldn’t see me saying them, in my absence they had a greater impact. Although I had indended for this film to be a silent one, after hearing the audio of myself talking, I have decided that I would like there to be a monologue.

I really enjoyed this collaboration with Klaudia, and hope to work with her again.

Dear Reader,

I have been toying with an idea for some time now. Hoping to use this for my upcoming exhibition in February, I have been thinking of doing a self portrait. This self portrait will be a little bit different to what you might expect to see however, as I won’t be in it.

As a wheelchair user I am often identified as my aid, “that wheelchair girl”, “the wheelchair student”, “my wheelchair friend” (yes, I have actually been referred to as such!). People in the street will call out or stare at me when I’m in my wheelchair; and I am often spoken over, and conversation is directed to the person pushing me. I’m regularly  ignored by sales assistants, medical professionals and hairdressers to name but three, who assume I can’t speak for myself and choose instead to talk to my carer as if I were a child or have limited mental capacity.

My wheelchair and I are interchangeable in the eyes of many, we are one and the same. I feel that my identity is concealed by my chair; when you look at me you see my disability before you see anything else.  For most, the chair is all they’ll ever see.

For my self portait, I decided that I would just display my wheelchair, as it is an integral part of my identity. Displaying my wheelchair as a sculptural piece, I created a label to go along with it. This label reads:

Now you see me, now you don’t: A sculpture of Alice Crane

I took advantage of my time in the creative lab space at the university to display my self portrait; this space is dedicated to solo experimentation and exhibition. I used my allocated time to trial this work, setting it up with my study support assistant before then scurrying back to my studio space to hide. I felt that this work would be more impactful to my peers if they didn’t know what I was up to. Many of my classmates aren’t used to seeing me without my wheelchair, and were shocked to find it empty.

This piece had more of an impact than I had anticipated; the reactions were strong and emotional. Those who I had known the longest were in tears; I had to administer hugs to sooth them. I was overjoyed that this work had the affect that it did, especially as I wasn’t sure about it. It provoked lots of discussion, including ideas about how I might display it in next years interim exhibition; it was thought that this piece was best shown in an intimate space and that we might place display panels around it.

Dear Reader,

After last semesters failed attempt to capture the detail of my wheelchair in a 3D scan, I decided that this academic year I would like to try again. Due to the 3D scanner struggling with the materiality of my chair, and not liking the shine of the metal, I had to come up with a new strategy to capture this missing infomation. After brainstorming with Danielle the university’s lead technician, we came up with a plan for me to wrap my chair in stretchy fabric. By wrapping the wheelchair in a stretchy cotton, it would not only erase the shine but would be done in a material that’s easy for the scanner to register. The biggest benefit to the cotton fabric being stretchy is that it will retain the original shape of the wheelchair.

Today, I had my first attempt at stretching fabric over my wheelchair. I wanted to start out small and work my way up to a full wheelchair covering. This morning’s focus was my right wheel. In last semesters scan my wheels were lost entirely and were replaced by artificial discs. The saddest part about this was that I lost my self propelling bars, so when covering my wheel today, I started by stretching the fabric over the wheel and tying string between the tyre and the bar for further definition.

Although this was good in theory, I found this quite difficult to do. The string kept popping off and I had trouble keeping the fabric taut, this could of happened for two reasons; firstly, I wasn’t strong enough when pulling the fabric back, or secondly, because by pulling the fabric so tightly the string would keep popping off.

I found the best method to be stretching the fabric across the whole wheel and tying it behind. This gave a smoother, tighter finish.

I then used the hand scanner to scan my wheel, I had to keep a forearms distance away whilst scanning and slowly move around the wheel capturing every angle. It then rendered on the screen.

The scan was successful, but it picked up a lot of background noise that I had to edit out. Using the editing software Artec Studio, I utilised various different eraser tools to cut out any unwanted bits.

My favorite eraser tool was the lasso, where I could loop large areas and make them vanish. It was very satisfying to watch such large parts of the scan disappear. This tool was also really good for erasing some of the finer details that were close to my final peice, as you can draw your lasso loop in any shape so I followed the curvature of the wheel.

After compressing the scans and editing out the baground noise, I was left with a wheel-like cylinder, I then made it water tight and rendered it.

After the editing of the wheel was complete, I transfered my scan to Prusa, a software used to send your work to the 3D printer. Although I didn’t print this work, as it was an experiment, I could see how it would look as a 3D print.

It was fascinating to be able to see how the layers inside the scan would build up a 3D print.

I really enjoyed this experiment, it turned out to be very successful. I always love being able to learn a new skill so I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the softwares behind making a 3D scan, and how to use them. Moving forward I will incorporate more fabric so that I can wrap my entire wheelchair and perhaps myself too! Although today’s scan was a success, I think next time I will try to tie the string around the bar of my chair after the fabrics been stretched; maybe this way I can have the same desired smooth finish but with more detail of my wheel.

The sculpture seen below has featured in other blog posts; it was a final piece in my second year and is titled Disability Erased.

As briefly mentioned in my pecha kucha blog post, this was a 3D printed version of myself that didn’t capture all of the detail in my wheelchair. I had always intended to use this model for photographing difficult terrain and daily challenges, but ran out of time due to technical issues. I was quite disheartened by the lack of information captured by the 3D scanner; it couldn’t cope with the shiny surfaces which didn’t bode well – in effect it erased a part of me. Yet, an Alice without her wheelchair is not complete. Like the scanner, it seems society would prefer me without it.

While organising the pages for the enlarged image on the floor of my studio, I started putting them on the wall, one-by-one, with myself at the centre; this left a gap where my image should have been in the pages on the floor (see photo below).

Looking at this reminded me of the original figure and how my disability was erased. There are parallels with this and the missing page which both mirror the way society is not built to cope with disability.  This happy accident left me thinking about how I could purposefully alter the next image to displace myself from the scene.

I really like how this transforms the work, shifting both it’s meaning and encouraging the viewer to find deeper meaning in the piece.

I love the composition of my studio wall and how harmonious the series is in terms of the colours and textures.  This harmony is in opposition to the tension I experience when I travel through the locations featured.  The irony that the yellow and black colours that dominate in these works, happen also to be the colours of the university brand, is not lost on me.

Continuing my experiments in scale, I’ve been going over some of my photographs of Little Alice In The Landscape. Although I had first indended for these works to be supplementary, after taking a second look at them I have decided to make a couple of them final pieces.

One of my favorite photos is this one of little 3D printed Alice facing a massive speed bump (see image below).

I feel like this is a really powerful image, and highlights how hard an obstacle a speed bump is for me. A speed bump is really easy just to step over but to self propel across is a different matter. Its a HUGE struggle and one that causes me a lot of pain too.

To really enhance this image, I  decided to blow it up using a program called Rasterbater. I had used this technique in my first year, and thought that this would be the perfect program to enlarge the accessibility problems I face.

I love seeing this work blown up. It feels monumental. I love the layers and how I have experimented with scale. First by making myself tiny, secondly by photographing the landscape from a low angle making it look huge; and lastly by enlarging the small photo to be larger than life. I would love to make this image even bigger until the small 3D model of myself becomes lifesize. Perhaps by doing this rather than me not fitting into the world, the world won’t fit in to my display.