Above: Lucy 03
In CGI, there is a danger-zone known well to animators and designers, known as 'the uncanny valley'. It is a place whereby a representation of something human - created by modelling software and texture-mapping - somehow doesn't quite make it, and the result has the adverse effect of looking unintentionally creepy. Scientific theory tells us that this is because the human is hard-wired to be alert to genetic mutations, disease, or disfigurement.
Indeed there is something in these pictures that eerily recalls photographs of returned World War I veterans, whose disfigurements - inflicted by newly industrialised, mechanized warfare - were unlike anything the civilian population were accustomed to.
This is the zone in which 'glitch' artist Mark Klink works.
So how does he do it? Mark explains:
The source material I sometimes model myself using Blender
or I use Makehuman. Both are open
source. Some of the heads are examples.
Sometimes I download models that are available on the web. For example, the
"Lucy" model comes from the Stanford 3d Scanning Repository.
Most of the time artists use conventional 3d modeling
software to create and reshape their models. However, I bring the raw data of
the model into a text editor or even a spreadsheet and manipulate it there. The
result are effects and distortions that could not be achieved otherwise.
Above: GlitchHead 019
Above: Lucy 10
Above: GlitchHead 012
Above: Lucy 01
Above: GlitchHead 14
Mark resides in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento, California. By day, he's a 'computer resource teacher', which he describes as 'a great job' teaching six to twelve-year-olds in the Elk Grove District how to use computers.
