Alleyway Points: Interweaving ‘Real’ and ‘Representational’ Materiality

Various forms of 3D capturing and scanning allow the physical world to enter the digital domain. Here, the representation of the physical is ‘set free’ from its physical limitations: There is no solidity or gravity and manipulations can
happen on whatever condition allowed by software and hardware. The catching of reality has proven useful in many ways. The ability to combine the virtual possibilities of computing with measures and shapes from reality creates
potential for interweaving the two coexisting domains and create a workflow that utilises an actual feedback loop.
In the creation of connecting workflows between digital and physical the condition is often realisation based on abstract data – a onedirectional process going from digital to physical through fabrication. Or conversely, by quantifying
and representing the physical matter through digital surveys.
Alleyway Points discusses the relationship between physical and digital matter in a series of captures and explorative fabrication that seeks to blur the lines between what is regarded the real and the representation.
By digitising an alleyway using different techniques, a series of high-resolution point cloud representations are created. Those representations are seen as the material, the substance, the matter of the following experiments, thereby shifting parameters and considerations from the physical to the digital.
A series of point clouds including two windows and a brick wall is in the centre of the experiments. The point cloud has certain behaviours and possibilities. These are utilised in the transformation of the point cloud data into fabrication data. The transformation manipulates and modifies the data – as does the fabrication itself: through a series of in-between steps the digital is converted, translated and materialised. This could be understood similar to the steps
of developing a (chemical) photographic representation, where reality is inevitably ‘modified’ along the way.
The final results are a selection of casts (concrete, beeswax and potentially a resin to come). These are made to inhabit the alleyway and reality from which they stem. They do not become three-dimensional pantographic copies, but rather translated and modified into new realities. Hence, they become both a real thing while still possessing their inherent representational qualities: The physical objects are representations of reality each with their distinct manipulated flavour. Furthermore, the intermediate results such as 3D prints, CNC
moulds, latex skins and digital drawings are understood as equally important.

Parts of the experiments are initiated by a research collaboration between Aarhus School of Architecture and CIMS, Carleton University, Ottawa.