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Artist Uses 3D Printing To Preserve Artifacts Destroyed By ISIS
tedlistens writes: "From the burning of the Library of Alexandria to the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan by the Taliban, to the Nazi's battle to burn as much "degenerate art" as they could find, mobs and soldiers have been quick to destroy what took societies centuries to create; what museums and collectors spent decades collecting, preserving, and documenting for the public." However, as noted by Motherboard in an article to which tedlistens links, "The digital era looks different: files can be cheaply hosted in data centers spread across several states or continents to ensure permanence. Morehshin Allahyari, an Iranian born artist, educator, and activist, wants to apply that duplicability to the artifacts that ISIS has destroyed. Now, Allahyari is working on digitally fabricating the sculptures for a series called "Material Speculation" as part of a residency in Autodesk's Pier 9 program. The first in the series is "Material Speculation: ISIS," which, through intense research, is modeling and reproducing statues destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Allahyari isn't just interested in replicating lost objects but making it possible for anyone to do the same: Embedded within each semi-translucent copy is a flash drive with Allahyari's research about the artifacts, and an online version is coming.
Low-resolution copies of the originals does not help preserve the originals.
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And if ISIS were to kill Will Weaton, that is OK since I have his Wesley Crusher action figure.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I'm afraid that willfull, destructive ignorance and barbarism isn't a problem that technology can solve. A digital copy, however perfect, remains a copy, and by nature, can't be used as proof that there ever *was* an original, which is the entire purpose of ISIS's destruction of these relics.
I don't mean to denigrate these efforts. I mean, I'm really glad to see some part of these works preserved, but... Human lives are transient, and we weep at senseless killing, but one thing humans can do to achieve a bit of immortality is to leave behind a long-lasting legacy of culture and art. ISIS is not only insistent on killing people in the present. Destroying these artifacts is like killing artists' legacies from the past as well.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
This is a tragedy waiting to happen!
That doesn't really preserve the originals, you're just making copies of them. There are hundreds of thousands of Mona Lisa's in the world, but they are all worth nothing compared to the original. I really don't mean to discourage these efforts, it's a good idea, but it's not "preserving artifacts destroyed by ISIS", it's "distributing copies of things destroyed by ISIS". Copies are not going to pacify my loathing for this terrible organization - these people deserved to be burned alive just like the people they've killed, and I'm very rarely one to talk about extremes.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
ISIS = Al Qaeda = CIA
sheep
It seems to me that if museums, as a matter of course, scan and extensively photograph all new inventory as well as old inventory -- and put the data on the interwebs -- that will provide some protection from the pigshit known as ISIL as well as other semi-human garbage. It would generate a lot of data, but these days that seems pretty cheap.
Part of the problem is that, although it is possible for museums from stable nations to storehouse collections from museums in unstable regions, the practical end result could be that those regions would be unable to show artefacts for decades or centuries. Further, if an official from semi-civilized country Y says, "give us back our junk", who is authorized to say yes or no, even if the purpose of getting stuff back is to destroy it? As I understand it, even now, items in museums in stable democracies are being returned to the country from which they were were taken, because those countries are asking for them back. Scanning such items before returning them at least provides the possibility to make a backup in case the original is damaged or destroyed.
yeah, it's not perfect, but he's actually DOING something.
Embedded within each semi-translucent copy is a flash drive with Allahyari's research about the artifacts, and an online version is coming.
And within an archaeologically insignificant moment of time, each flash drive will contain nothing but noise, the trapped charges within each cell having leaked and degraded into noise. Typically, thumb drive manufacturers target an expected retention time of no more than about a decade.
From the article:
These people (that is, the extremists) honestly believe they can make this Orwellian fantasy come true in the digital age? Sure, the world will lose a lot of precious artifacts, but information can't be destroyed - and that's withOUT people like Allahyari acting to resurrect those artifacts. The world needs more people like him.
*shakes head*
... or he'll probably get busy with a 3-D printer, write some inane bit of blather on postcards, and start selling these for millions.
#DeleteChrome
I love how the summary glosses over the fact that the US has bombarded and looted historical sites countless times.
But of course, it doesn't count because if america does it it's for a "good cause" so it gets called another thing.
And no, I won't click the article, even if I have adblock on.
There is definitely something evil about that part of the world. The area of Iraq known as Mesopotamia is supposedly the birthplace of humanity but history proves the people of that region have been nothing but inhumane... the stories of the Tower of Babble.. Sodom and Gomorrah and the battles of Genghis Khan are seated in that very location. Khan historically is the only leader to fight the muslims of that area and win but to do so meant completely exterminating every man woman, child and animal .. he would literally kill everything when one of his silk and spice merchants traveled through that area and was killed. Khan gave them a choice he would send a single load of product through an area.. Khan would agree to pay any toll and abide by any local custom to get his product through. When his people were killed he would send his entire army into a town and kill everything .. man woman child animal and salt the fields and poison the water so nothing survived and nothing could live there. He found this was the only way. Leaving children and women to live would only mean the child would grow up to avenge the death of the father no matter how wrong the father was. You can see that today. When Bush Sr had to rescue Kuwait from Iraq it set in play a generational battle against the USA. The people of Iraq didn't care that they were wrong for trying to take over a country and that they deserved to be stopped.. It is not like Germans and Japanese today where only a very few believe their wars were wrong and they have amends to the world to make. Muslims share the God of the Jews and Christians but they reject the teachings of Jesus. They believe Jesus existed but they reject him. ... I was taught that to know God and to Reject him is worse than to never know him.. many people are atheists and many more have never been taught of God.. But Islam especially in the form that ISIS Practices is nothing less than pure evil. To rape and murder children is the worst thing you can do as a human.. but to do it in the name of God that is pure evil and nothing less. Khan was right the only way to stop them is the way he was forced to take. The only good thing about ISIS is that they are emptying cities of Christians and good Muslims if you believe there are any.. and the people that remain are either complicit by paying ISIS or Members ... It is unfortunate that our leaders don't understand the teaching of genghis khan when dealing with these people... he was the only one who could protect his people.. that is until after his death one of his children took over the leadership of the Mongolians and became muslim and then the Mongolians were conquered. This has happened in the West because of immigration. Our governments are not lead by kings anymore they are elected. The our countries have been infiltrated .. our politicians have been replaced .. our freedom is in the hands of those who would eliminate us... in the end a few 3d statues doesn't mean a thing because you can't bring back all that has been taken.
The artefacts can not be preserved digitally, once they are gone they are gone for good, everything else is a cheap copy.
Which sums up the digital world... "cheap copy".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
So on a tangent note: the guy's last name is a composite of god "allah" and help/helping "yari".
The original work may have special value since it was made by the original artist.. but.. sometimes these marvelous works are not suitable for handling/experiencing by interested parties. a book from the middle ages is probably going to be untouchable by Joe Public, but an exact duplicate on modern paper might be read by more people. I am FAR from approving of destruction of original works... That has been done by so many groups over time. so... Lets start duplicating objects of art so the destruction of the original does not mean much to the miscreants. Less motive to destroy original if there are many copies!!
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
A physical object is of value because it was the only remains of what a person did.
So if you think of it that way those artifacts are like magnet Tape
They carry ideas from one person or era to another.. those ideas persist
Destroying artififacts is merely a futile attempt to detroy and Idea and generate Attention.. its very short sited.. its like saying please Kill me, please forget about Me
In that way ISIS deserves ti be forgotten.. they get what they wanted.. nobody will care about their ideas.. except that they attempted to force people to do things they didn't want to.
That the rest of the world persists in rememebering the ideas those objects represent.. is the ultimate defeat of ISIS.. they loose.. on every ground.. nobody care about them any more.. they are forgotten.. the ultimate way to loose.
You can't kill idea, but you can forget the ones who tried to kill it
I concur with you that 'Preserving' is not the right word, nor the concept can stand any scrutiny
The root of the problem is not the destroyed artifacts but that we, the human society, let a group of nutcase to wantonly destroying valuable artifacts in the beginning
Had the West understand the truly evil nature of Islam the Islamic based terrorist groups such as Al Queda - which destroyed the 3,000 year old Buddha statues in Afghanistan - and Islamic State would have been squashed right at their infancy
It is the West which allows (and funds) the terrorists groups --- The fact that terrorist supporter state Qatar is still allowed to exist testifies to the West's complicit in the perpetuating Islamic terror to the human society
Someone should calculate the meet deficit to society and civilisation bought by Islam. Everyone talks about their contributions, usually then mentioning things plagiarised from other societies (box plundered from when they destroyed the Alexandrian library, Hindu numbering schemes, etc.). Over all out of certainly a negative contribution.
to the Nazi's battle to burn as much "degenerate art" as they could find
The "degenerate art" removed from the museums headed in all sorts of directions,
Hitler used to use Baedeker travel guides as a guide to what should be destroyed, although a famous library in the Netherlands was bombed at the start of the war "just because". After the Allies (ok, the British) destroyed a few German cultural spots of neglible military value, the Luftwaffe was sent to destroy highlights selected from Baedeker such as Coventry Cathedral.
There were two Warsaw uprisings, the Jewish one and then later - with the Soviets approaching - the Polish one. As revenge for the second one, buildings were blown up in the order of their ranking in the Warsaw Baedeker - best to worst. The Soviets ceased their advance and waited for the Nazis to suppress the uprising before resuming operations. That is one of the factors behind the Polish attitude to Russia, Katyn being another big one.
With ISIS (I thought it was ISIL) now starting to operate in Saudi Arabia, I wonder if Islamic sites are in danger. One would think not but I had not expected the recent suicide bombings either.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Bravo!