Researcher: Sam Blanchard
Students: Sarah Hammer, Cheyenne Clevenger

It is estimated that 1.8 billion photos are shared every day via searchable online networks such as Google, Yahoo, Flickr, and the like. The Crowd-Sourced Sculpture Series explores how this seemingly endless stream of imagery can be leveraged to translate space and form through examination of the most popularly searched sculptures in western art history. Using only tourist photos culled from Google image search results for Venus de Milo, Michelangelo's David, and Rodin's Thinker, flawed and incomplete likenesses are stitched together in photogrammetry software, rendered, and 3D printed. The resulting jagged and mottled figures are physical manifestations of web presence. Areas of high and low resolution speak to the focal points and perspectives frequently captured by visitors to these icons of western sculpture. This project is supported by an Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology SEAD Grant.