Portfolio
Scanner Art
WIP Personal Project, 2023
This is personal project I started through experimenting with scanning unusual materials. Initially, I played with scanning foil confetti – mainly because it was sitting on my desk near my scanner and I wanted to see what would happen. The foil wasn't as interesting on its own as I thought it would be, so I wanted to see what it looked like when I added a colourful lamp as a light source. I liked the shapes that were made by the lamp as it followed the scanner light.
Googly Eyes felt like a natural thing to try next, as they are a key staple in any self-respecting plastic box of party ephemera.
The above images were made by smearing googly eyes across the scanner bed with my hands as they were being scanned. I'm not sure why I started getting my hands involved at this point. It just felt right.
I felt like the googly eye scans were interesting to me, so I started doing more tests in this area. What does it look like if I scan in colour? What does it look like if I change the DPI settings? If I wanted to make prints, how would this best be treated?
The higher DPI settings were interesting because of the much higher resolution and detail, but it was much harder to achieve a smooth, 'melty' look that felt special in the initial scans.
Viewing the images in colour felt interesting in a different way – but my instinct was that the black and white versions felt like a better direction. Perhaps because they are less about the hands and more about the eyes.
At the moment, I'm working towards learning more about printing practice and how to produce the images in a physical format.