This Thursday, May 9, we are partnering with The Go Game to offer a mobile scavenger hunt for singles. All you have to bring is your sense of adventure (and ideally a mobile device, you need one per team); we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll divide you into teams based on your dating preference, and you get to roam the museum completing missions, meeting new people, and perhaps enjoying a cocktail afterwards. Even if you don’t find “the one,” it will be hard not to have fun playing this game. There are several types of missions, including trivia, location-based puzzles, team photo ops, interacting with planted actors, and more.

I hope you’ll stick around after the game to share you thoughts because Elisabeth, Shelley, and I want to pick your brains. Was the scavenger hunt fun? Would you like more of them, perhaps with different topics or themes? Was it a good way to meet new people? Would you like to see more events like this? More singles events in general? The Go Game is kind enough to work with us for this experimental version, and if you like it, we might partner with them to do more scavenger hunts. So gather your single friends and flap your little wings over to the Museum Thursday at 7!

In our use it made sense to start with the Sensory Tour, our monthly tour for visitors with visual impairments as well as anyone who wants to experience art using more than just their sense of sight.  We continually had great success using raised line drawings (they’re just what they sound like; the lines are literally raised from the surface of the paper) to help people feel contours of two-dimensional art.  Why not try the same thing with one more dimension in the mix?

It took some creative thinking and interdepartmental teamwork to figure out an appropriate object and Lost Pleiad hit all the right marks. So, armed with a few 3D prints of Randolph Rogers’ sculpture in our teaching bag, we hit the galleries in the capable teaching hands of Megan Holland and Brigitte Moreno to “explore lines of ink on paper, lines of movement, and lines of poetry in our most recent exhibition, Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum.”

So, how did it go, you’re probably wondering?  Did having these touchable models deepen participants’ engagement with the artwork?  Did people walk away feeling like they’d had a satisfying tactile experience with this sculpture?  Is 3D printing going to usurp the place of the statue in museums?  These are all things that were on the minds of the educators as we stepped into this new semi-charted territory.

As with most complicated issues, the results were mixed. Visitors were visibly, physically excited by the prospect of our inclusion of this technology.  They paid careful, detailed attention to the surface of the sculpture and all of its contours. They held up the 3D models and compared them to the original sculpture in front of them.

They looked at the 3D prints from all angles (more than they were able to do with the original, and not unlike the animation commenter Sebastian Heath made from the Thingiverse files David shared in his last post).

During this Sensory Tour, we also passed around samples of marble in various finishes and scarves to think about the contrast between the dense stone and the diaphanous fabric.  People gave them similar amounts of time and attention as they had the 3D prints, but the stone and scarves seemed to spark a wider variety of conversation and brought people’s focus back to the sculpture more quickly.  Not that this is all on the technology, of course, but as educators we’re pretty comfortable using material like the stone samples and scarves to get quality audience conversation going.

The 3D prints are new tools for us to play with, and we need to work with them more to get more comfortable. What are the best kinds of questions to ask people when we put these into their hands?  As blogged about by Alastair Somerville, does it work better to manipulate the image for emphasis, rather than staying strictly true to the original?

In our post-game conversation, the education team behind the Sensory Tours agreed that 3D prints are great tools to help people feel the weight and balance of a sculpture.  They’re “a new way of making lines; a digital brushstroke,” said one educator, and since this month’s Sensory Tour was focused on lines, we couldn’t think of a better place in starting this project.

In years past, we’ve shared various aspects of this event via social media mostly in the form of documentation; artists creating tables, guests arriving, and activity happening throughout the night.  This year, we decided to go a more creative route and our Twitter and Instagram feeds will become #table17.

Starting Friday, Brooklyn-based artist Man Bartlett will take over these two feeds and create a project that speaks to how everyone can bring something to the table.  In his own words:

The People’s Table is a virtual collection of images submitted by people around the world in response to the question, “What do you bring to the table?” It is meant to act as a reminder of the multitude of ways that people attribute value to objects and ideas in culture, while simultaneously offering access without regard to significant financial or societal limitations. Anyone with access to an Internet connection can bring themselves, and their vision to the table. Additionally, this collection will be projected for the guests of the 2013 BK Ball, where they will be invited to participate as well.

Man is working with Barry Hoggard to help bring the table to life and we couldn’t be more excited to see it materialize both online and in the building on April 24.  Follow @brooklynmuseum on Twitter and Instagram to join us at #table17.

Museum sculptures are an interesting case in accessibility; they exist in a place the public can access but usually aren’t allowed to touch. Most sculpture materials aren’t too smelly or noisy so that limits the sensory experience to sight. However, not everyone has the ability to see, and although special exemptions are occasionally made to allow the visually impaired to touch some sculptures, you can only feel so much of a large object.

Sight includes the ability to expand the size or detail of what you’re looking at by moving closer or further away from the object. This isn’t possible in the two-dimensional web, so the paradigm of pairing a “thumbnail” image with a full-size counterpart became an established method for having both a high-level and up-close view of things. With similar constraints in mind, we’ve utilized 3D scanning and printing to create a “thumbnail” for large sculptures which can be used as a tactial maps of the object’s entire shape.

So how do you go from marble masterpiece to plastic replica? Like 3D printing, 3D scanning has also recently broken out of the expensive-equipment-for-expensive-professions world and into the much more afforable world of hobbyists and institutions with modest budgets. AutoCAD’s 123D Catch is a free download which was launched last year as a way to create 3D models from photos using stereophotogrammetry, which basically means taking a bunch of photos from different angles and letting software figure out how far away stuff in one photo is from stuff in the next.

The conditions those photos are taken in both in the camera and everything surrounding the subject are pretty unforgiving; out of the first eight attempts I’ve made scanning sculptures, only the double Pegasus ended up looking close to what it was supposed to. From these initial attempts and some research, I was able to narrow down the list of things to scan next by whether they met this criteria:

• Can’t be shiny
• Can’t be or be inside something transparent
• Can’t be wiggly/moving (no scanning museum visitors)
• Must fit in a photo when shot at 30 different angles in a 360 degree radius
• Must be lit under consistent lighting
• Can’t have shadows cast on it when shooting
• Can’t have too many things moving around in the shot (museum visitors indoors, leaves in a windy day outdoors)

When Rachel recommended Randolph Rogers’s The Lost Pleiad, it so perfectly matched the criteria that I saw myself rendering a perfect model from the first scan. Eleven scanning attempts later, I found out:

• Most cameras try to attempt auto-adjusting exposure when shooting towards a source of light, ruining the scan
• Bright spotlights on bright white marble create a blur between the edge of the object and the background, ruining the scan
• Turning off said spotlights without cranking up a camera’s ISO settings lead to slower shutter releases which lead to blurry images, ruining the scan
• Cameraphones and point-and-shoot cameras don’t have very high ISO settings and I don’t have perfectly steady hands

Scan #11 used a Canon SLR with a manually set white balance, exposure level, and high ISO setting (5000); only auto-focus remained in the camera’s control. Approximately 30 shots in a mostly even perimeter around the statue were taken and re-taken in case if the first take was out of focus along with around 12 overhead shots in a smaller perimeter above and around the statue. After sorting out any blurry photos, the images were uploaded into the Windows version of 123D Catch which shows the angles at which each photo was taken.

Before this is printer-ready, the object had to be cleaned up so that the object has a flat base and doesn’t include stuff in the background picked up by the scan. We used MeshMixer, a free download.

With the texture removed, the remaining mesh looked as though it was melting somewhere that didn’t have gravity with swaths of wall and floor surrounding it (alt+left mouse drag to move around, alt+right mouse drag to zoom in).

I removed floating artifacts is by using the plane cut tool (Edits -> Plane Cut). This was also useful for removing bulges on the surface and slicing a perfectly flat base for the model. The surface of the object was also bumpy and jagged where it should be smooth (arms, torso, etc). The way I solved this was by using the smoothing brush.

The smoothing brush (Smoothbrush/1) is basically digital sandpaper; For each rough area, I adjusted the size and strength of the brush to match the size and roughness of the surface until it looked more like it’s supposed to. In addition to the removal of defects, the object had to be made “watertight” and have any holes and cracks sealed before being printable.

With the  inspector tool (Analysis -> Inspector), a floating color-coded sphere pointed to a gap near the bottom of the robe, which was filled by right-clicking the sphere, choosing to smooth the boundary, then left-clicking the sphere.

With the object ready, I exported it as an STL file (File -> Export), a format which most if not all 3D printers can print with. For the printer we use at the Brooklyn Museum (3D Systems Cube v2), the STL file needed to be processed using their Cube Software, also a free download. Using that, I imported the STL file and clicked Heal to double-check the model’s watertightness. Since the model itself was fairly small, I also used the Orient & Scale tool to make it 260% bigger. In Settings, I removed the raft (the Cube uses a special glue that makes printing a platform raft unnecessary) and also removed supports since most of the statue probably wouldn’t need them. Finally, I centered it with the Center icon and hit Build. For simplicity, I built the final .cube file to a USB drive that I could just plug into the printer.

The printer’s on-screen menu has incredibly clear and simple step-by-step directions on how to print, so I won’t repeat them here. Five hours later, the print was completed and looked close enough to be a handheld tactical map of the real McCoy, with only minor amount of overhanging plastic extrusion in areas near the bottom of the robe and under the raised arm.

BONUS: We’re also releasing the STL files under a Creative Commons license for both the Double Pegasus and The Lost Pleiad which you can download and print on your own 3D printer:

Download Double Pegasus (CC-BY 3.0) on Thingiverse
Download The Lost Pleiad (CC-BY 3.0) on Thingiverse

As part of an internal program within the Technology department, we’ve started a series of developer led R&D projects; developers propose what they want to experiment with and we set aside time in our busy work week to foster that creativity. In our first round of experiments David Huerta wanted to work with 3D printing; he’s incredibly passionate about this and has been following the 3D printing projects in the industry and beyond.

Irwin S. Chanin (American, 1891-1988). Double Pegasus from the Coney Island High Pressure Pumping Station, 2301 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn, 1936-1937. Limestone, granite, 48 x 24 x 48 in. (121.9 x 61.0 x 121.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Lent by The City of New York, L2003.7.2.

I’ll say I needed some convincing; even in asking the team to experiment, my own thoughts tend to take me toward practical applications and, while 3D printing is whiz bang cool and a lot of people had ideas for applications, we just were not seeing much materialize just yet.  But, you never know where a project can lead you, so David started his project by working with the Double Pegasus—an object from Coney Island which greets visitors in our sculpture garden.

David Huerta with his 3D print of the Double Pegasus.

When he showed up with his 3D print, we were pretty excited and that little physical simulacrum got me thinking about practical applications and how something like this might be used to help our educators with their own goals in helping visitors who are blind or partially sighted.  After speaking with Rachel Ropeik in our Education department, she immediately saw the possibilities and wanted to experiment; David and Rachel are now working on a cross-departmental project to bring 3D printed objects into our series of Sensory Tours.

We consider this a fast, iterative project that aims to get the output right into our visitors hands as we report back on our findings.  We’ve had plenty of bumps in the road—just finding an object that was appropriate for their tour combined with our own ability to capture it was challenging. In the coming week or two, David will blog a lot more on the technical ins and outs of the project and Rachel will be reporting about education goals and visitor reaction. The Double Pegasus is just the start.

GO Featured Artist, Yeon Ji Yoo, installs her work in the exhibition.

You may have noticed that we’re opening GO on a Target First Saturday. Given the democratic nature of the project, we thought this would be a fitting way to get the show off to the right start.  For this month’s programming, our education team worked with GO’s Neighborhood Coordinators to pull together an evening full of events showcasing all the great things going on in Brooklyn—from Coney Island to Bushwick!  It’s going to be an exciting night with performances from Underground System Afrobeat, Maya Azucena, AVAN LAVA, L.O.U.D. (League of Unreal Dancing), and Parachute: The Coney Island Performance Festival.  Our GO Featured Artists—Adrian Coleman, Oliver Jeffers, Naomi Safran-Hon, Gabrielle Watson, and Yeon Ji Yoo—will be giving pop-up talks next to their works starting at 8pm (get in line early for free tickets, which will be distributed from the visitor center at 7pm). There’s more, too, so check out the full schedule.  Best of all, Target First Saturday is free!

During the evening, we’ll be hosting a special event for Members who’ve taken part in GO. You’ll find us saying hello to our awesome voters and making sure they get their GO swag.  Also, our friends from NYCHA will be joining us as our educators lead tours through the installation for housing residents.

Sharon and I have been fortunate enough to meet many of you throughout this process and to read and learn from your valuable feedback; we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished together and we hope that we’ll see you again on Saturday night to celebrate GO Brooklyn.

In the studio with Naomi Safran-Hon.

The nominations from the community offered a remarkably broad range of artists and practices. We were struck by the different art worlds represented by the nominated artists. Although painting prevailed, we saw work representing a range of media styles, and subjects. We also appreciated that the artists ranged from the self-taught to the academically trained, and that some are full-time artists while others create their art alongside other careers.

Our challenge was to take this array of options and to think about the show as an entity, including its cohesiveness and scale. We wanted to select a group of artists who would represent the range of those nominated, and the artistic spectrum of those working in Brooklyn. Ultimately we strove to present a strong cohesive exhibition that reflected the artistic choices that reflected the democratic process of GO.

As we deliberated and strategized, we recognized that difficult choices needed to be made. We decided to chose a group of artists that represented the breadth of practices we had seen in the studios and a selection of several works by each artist to convey a sense of depth. Given the size of the mezzanine gallery we had at our disposal, this meant that the group of 10 nominees had to be pared down to fewer finalists.

Curators taking a look at the work of Naomi Safran-Hon during the installation of GO in the Brooklyn Museum mezzanine gallery.

As with all exhibitions initially everything seems possible until the moment for difficult decisions arrives. We hope that everyone who has engaged in this project will come to see the final exhibition. As we install the show this week, we will begin to see the relationship between the individual works by each artist as well as the conversation between the different artistic voices in the gallery. The distinctive space of the mezzanine gallery presents unique opportunities for the installation and exhibition design, including the placement of informational texts and the inclusion of a community component to reflect the open studio weekend and the tremendous activity that led us to this installation.

Over the past year and a half, we discussed many ways to approach the exhibition, including whether or not the exhibition was necessary. In the process, we considered various models. For instance, we have already mentioned the inspiration provided by ArtPrize and our interest in modifying their framework to see work within the context of the studio and to require voters to nominate fewer artists. We also looked at the Walker Art Center’s 50/50: Audience and Experts Curate the Paper Collection, an exhibition that invited the public to vote on a selection of images on a kiosk at the museum and online, while their chief curator chose works by artists represented in depth in the museum collection. The resulting selections were hung in two sections, sparking “a range of questions about the dynamics between ‘audience’ and ‘expert,’ or between curatorial practice and so-called ‘mass taste.’” By contrast, the Hammer’s new Mohn Prize awardee was chosen by public vote from the museum’s Made in L.A. biennial exhibition. The experts, a jury of curators, winnowed the pool from the 60 exhibiting artists to 5 before inviting the public to vote. This model shifts the weight of decision making toward the experts. We also considered our own past projects, particularly Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition. While Click!, a great success, has served as a model for many subsequent projects elsewhere, it focused on using the internet as a tool and the photographs, though Brooklyn-themed, were judged online and in isolation.  During GO, we wanted to shift the focus more toward seeing a body of work in the studio with the artist present while creating an awareness of the art-making taking place in various communities throughout Brooklyn.

Installation of GO started on Monday in our Mezzanine gallery on the second floor of the Museum.

Since the main objective of GO was to connect the community with the vast number of artists working in their neighborhoods, the process included meeting and talking to artists face-to-face as well as scores of opportunities to encounter art in the flesh, so to speak. We invited the public into artists’ studios and asked it to nominate artists, creating the shortlist of artists for me and Eugenie Tsai to visit and select for the show, creating a collaboration between members of the community and the museum curators.

As always, practical issues arise. With exhibitions, the issue is always one of available space during the preferred period of time. We wanted the exhibition to follow the open studio weekend as quickly as possible and estimated that the entire process would take about three months, putting the opening in early December. We also felt strongly that unveiling the show on a First Saturday would be in keeping with the community-spirited character of the show. We felt now was the right time with Brooklyn experiencing such a great renaissance and with such widespread enthusiasm for the incredible creativity in the borough.

More to come this week!

• Adrian Coleman, Fort Greene, painting
• Oliver Jeffers, Boerum Hill, painting, illustration, and drawing
• Naomi Safran-Hon, Prospect Heights, painting
• Gabrielle Watson, Crown Heights, painting
• Yeon Ji Yoo, Red Hook, mixed media sculpture

We will be discussing our choices, challenges with the show, and the installation process more in the next couple of weeks. For now, we have been focused on compiling the checklist and working with our designer, registrar, and editorial staff to plan the exhibition, gather the works, and prepare the written materials to accompany the show.

We hope you’ll continue to join us as we move towards the exhibition, which opens December 1 as a celebration of not only these artists, but all the artists and participants that made GO such a great success.

In alphabetical order:

• Aleksander Betko, Cobble Hill, painting and drawing
• Jonathan Blum, Park Slope, painting and printmaking
• Adrian Coleman, Fort Greene, painting
• Oliver Jeffers, Boerum Hill, painting, illustration, and drawing
• Kerry Law, Greenpoint, painting
• Prune Nourry, Boerum Hill, photography, video/film/sound, and sculpture
• Eric Pesso, Ditmas Park, sculpture
• Naomi Safran-Hon, Prospect Heights, painting
• Gabrielle Watson, Crown Heights, painting
• Yeon Ji Yoo, Red Hook, mixed media sculpture

We are pleased to have such a mix of artists represented in this group, including painters, illustrators, sculptors, and installation artists. Painting clearly ruled with seven of the ten artists being self-identified painters. At the same time, we note the absence of design, fashion, and textile arts, and also that photography, video, and performance are represented only in Nourry’s work.

The results were also a bit surprising in terms of the weekend activity, as was hinted at in Shelley’s post on unexpected traffic patterns. Nine neighborhoods are represented, but they are not the neighborhoods that most people were predicting to be the hot spots. Shelley will be delving into these results to show how visitation may have shaped nominations, so stay tuned as we report on this more.

As we have discussed along the way, this project aimed not only to bring artists and their communities closer together, but also to open up the curatorial process. While most of our exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum have the standard model of being curator conceived and organized, we recognize the value in considering other models. Most recently, our Raw/Cooked series features under-the-radar Brooklyn artists nominated by an artist advisory committee and then selected by Eugenie Tsai, our Curator of Contemporary Art.

With GO, we established a collaborative process where we invited the public to visit studios and then nominate artists before Museum curators would visit the top artists and make the determination of those to be featured in the exhibition, and the work to be included. This will undoubtedly be a difficult task, particularly given the great range of work and the strong support for these artists. Nonetheless, we are committed to creating the best exhibition possible within these parameters, and that will mean making some tough choices.

Over the next month, we will visit these ten artists’ studios and begin highlighting them one by one on our website. By November 15th we will announce the featured artists for the exhibition, which will open on December 1, 2012 during our Target First Saturday evening.