Topic: 3D panoramic collage - Photosynth

I've been researching possible methods I could use to go 3-dimensional with my collages. I came across more work similar to that of Oliver Herring, who I researched last semester. This piece was done by Suzy Olivera. It reminds me of the canoe that was displayed in the pollack hallway a year or so ago. It was carved out of wood, but also sculpted using images of wood. The process seems difficult, but I may be able to use a similar method to do landscapes. I'm very keen about portraying imagery though, and I think that in crafting something with this kind of dimension would make the piece more about the sculpture and less about the image. If I make something 3D, I'd want it to add to the imagery and the viewer's experience of the imagery. That said though, I think I could use similar materials (foam and printed images) to collage a piece that is more along the lines of what I've done up to now. One of the main obstacles though would be how to cover up the sides of the foam if I used it as a backing for photos. I could add more imagery to the sides, but that would have to be taken account in the entire collage.

Something very interesting that I did come across while researching 3D collage photography was a technology by Microsoft called Photosynth. It's a program that analyzes images for similarities, such as landmarks, and links them all together. It doesnt matter where the images are taken from, so it can essentially create a virtual 3D tour of a location using a number of images. These virtual tours can be tagged to a geographic location on Virtual Earth, which is Microsoft's version of Google Earth I guess. Therefore you can find a landmark via sattelite imagery, and then click down to ground level and take a virtual tour of it as if you were there. People use images available on sites like Flikr to create these "synths," so over time you could essentially tour the earth using the billions of images available on the web. While this technology amazes me, it also causes me to fully realize the possibility of completely computer-generated panoramic collages. I need to really push the creative side of my work if I want to set myself apart from things like this.