Artist Ivana Basic Built A Perfect 3D Avatar Of Herself

The ideas behind digitizing the human body have provoked some of the most culturally-significant artworks and technologies, from the late 20th Century, all the way to today. In 1983's Videodrome, David Cronenberg used special effects to show a man slowly becoming part of the machine. J.G. Ballard's 1973 novel, Crash, features characters obsessed with car accidents, as a metaphor for the alienation and detachment possible through total immersion in technology. Even this year's most hotly-awaited sci-fi thriller, Transcendence, seeks to please audiences with the disastrous results of one scientist, played by Johnny Depp, being "uploaded."

These are cautionary tales that suggest the future is something to be afraid of; here at The Creators Project, we have no time to dwell on these misdirected misgivings. We'd rather be a little more optimistic about integrating new technologies into our daily existences.

It's in this vein that we were blown away by SOMA, the new project by multimedia artist Ivana Basic. Wading into the same, evaporating virtual waters as Cronenberg, Ballard, and Depp's Dr. Will Caster, Basic comes out on the other side, unscathed, and soon to be one of the first, proud, real-world owners of her own virtual "body."

Using techniques not dissimilar to the same special effects processes that allowed Sandra Bullock to perform in Gravity without the risks provided by, well, gravity, Basic's work mirrors our intentions behind creating these technologies and allow us to grow and learn from the stuff we dream up. Automata, another work by Basic, reveals an object breaking out from its casing through a microscopic camera, an inversion of the surgical camera techniques used to assist the repairing of the human body. While in World is all of one skin, Basic explores contemporary notions of boundaries, through the photographic layering of a 3D scan of her own skin.

With SOMA, though, Basic is in the process of crating the “perfect avatar,” a rigged simulation of herself that, once finished, could effectively be the most successful 3D model ever made.

Created with the highest CGI-industry standards in mind, Basic's “hyper realistic 3D model of herself,” uses real images of her real body, from head to toe. The applied technology she learned from World is all of one skin is so accurate that Basic's avatar will be shaded and textured with images of Basic's actual skin. The result? Ivana Basic®.

“The perfect avatar for me is my perfect representation based purely on information,” said Basic via email. “Embodied information if you will, where every pore on my skin and every hair on my body is translated into information.” Basic added that she pushes for extreme realism because the avatar will represent her in her absence. “The part of me that is absent from my digital self is my body which is why I am now creating a container for my digital presence."

Basically, Basic found it interesting to push the boundaries of 3D modeling, after noticing that most 3D female models were overtly-sexualized. She set out to subvert and critique the standing market trend with her own avatar. “I think that introducing a model that has a 'real world' identity creates a certain level of gravity to this kind of use, which allows me to further problematize and try to influence [certain] trends in female 3D modeling,” she said.

The first version of Ivana Basic® will be non-rigged and sold for $499. The second version will be a “rigged and posed version” named Ivana Dynamic®, which will be sold for $999. Basic plans to sell the pieces on the SOMA project website in the form of an art auction. She hopes to create a new value on the 3D market: that of the artist's body. Basic wants consumers to do as they please with her figure, with the only stipulation being that she be allowed to “track and document these uses in order to create a dialogue between the market and the project.”

Basic will also sell the models on 3D modeling resource, Turbosquid, and will present the project on a webpage wherein visitors will even be able to "purchase her."

Ever the comprehensive artist, Basic plans to expand SOMA into virtual and augmented realities, as well. Ivana Dynamic®, her "2.0" model, will be brought into performance spaces to act as a performer. “Ivana Dynamic® will live as a real human in virtual reality layer of gallery space where she will conduct a durational performance, accessible to visitors when viewing the space through the lenses of their mobile devices or through 360 degrees iPad stations installed in the performance space,” writes Basic on her website.

If all goes as planned, her double will have a real world identity but become something of, in her words, an “open avatar” that people will be able to “embody” through simulation. It's almost like the plot of Being John Malkovich, but with a lot less creepy side-effects. Individual privacy is also a concern: “I think for me the only logical and perhaps utopian move in that direction is founded on the idea of multiplication of oneself until the point of non-distinction, which is then in a way the space of freedom."

“If there were multiples of me, or if anybody could be me, then you wouldn't know which one, of all of me, is really me," she said. "In that sense, identity would become fluid and open, which is probably the worst nightmare of all of the capitalistic and governmental infrastructures, since [at that point] any accountability based on identity would be impossible.”

In the gallery, Ivana's model will live on a pedestal “like any other art piece,” and she will occasionally warp her body in sculptural forms to showcase the technology itself at work. Even more ambitiously, Basic wants her model to step down from the pedestal and walk through the gallery “like a regular human,” a performance viewable entirely, and only, via an augmented reality smartphone app. If Basic can pull it off, SOMA will breathe extradimensional weirdness back into the gallery space.