More on Spatial Design Assignment 2
Lisa Lurie commented that the shape of the photo collage I assembled was an interesting piece by itself. She also suggested that a black background might increase the sense of being in the room.
Somewhere in the back of my mind were memories of books from my childhood -- the kind of books you cut shapes out of that become 3-dimensional objects. The form of the Living Room Composites I was created must have reminded me of the flattened out spheres from those books.
Originally, I was trying to assemble and distort the photos to represent the 3-dimensional space on the flat surface of the computer screen. With the second composite, I worried less about distoring the perspective of the photos and more about matching up each of the rows of shots I had taken. Taking the X-Acto in hand, I was able to transform the flat images back into 3-dimensional space by way of the curved lens through which the light in the room had reflected into the camera. After cutting between the "arms" of the image, I pulled them together into a hemisphere to match up the duplicated parts of the images.
The unknown is whether this satisfies the requirements of the assignment. I worked with thumbnails of the original 3 megapixel images in order to keep the "technology frustration" to a minimum -- not having to worry so much about the time I had invested in the slow process of manipulating large images if the concept didn't work out. As it stands, my "model" is about 4" across and I'm not sure if it will be possible for people who are unfamiliar with my room to discern the objects in it.