On February 9th the Integrated Tech, ACCAD Creative Projects class visited the Dancing with Devils: Latin American Masks Traditions in the Barnett Center Collaboratory.

This new semester-long collaboration with Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Jeremy Patterson and their students (ACCAD), Dean Hensley, Immersive designer for OTDI (Office of Technology and Digital Innovation), Amy Spears and Alex Torchia (Digital Union) uses the diablada masks on display to bring humanities questions into dialogue with technology and design as students explore how cultural content might inform digital capture processes, and similarly how digital opportunities invite new perspectives and new forms of inquiry for Latin American traditions.

Michelle, Tamryn and Anais discuss the Dancing with Devils exhibition with visiting ACCAD students and visitors from the OTDI and the Digital Union.

Jeremy Patterson demonstrates how to capture one of the exhibit masks using his iPhone 14 to create a 3D digital object. Photogrammetry processes and technology have evolved with handheld devises and AI that recognizes markers for making sense of the hundreds of photos on its own and compiling them into a digital asset in less than 20 minutes.

More documentation of a Tukuna bark cloth mask from Southeastern Colombia in the Kawsay Ukunchay collection. Rigid surfaces of the diablo masks versus that of soft cloth masks require a slightly different process and pose a different challenge.

Sometimes the renderings don’t turn out as you planned!

ACCAD students will continue to work with the masks this spring as a resource for learning about, exploring and testing digitization processes and rendering digital 3D assets for eventual use in AR and VR.