Missing Objects Library

Jill Miller, Asma Kazmi, Kathy Wang

Missing Objects Library (MOL) is a curated, web-based repository of handmade 3D objects that are designed with an intersectional, feminist lens. MOL is displayed as both a physical video installation and a web-based, free model library. MOL offers an alternative to commercial, status quo storefronts that provide digital assets for game design and special effects. Objects sold in these spaces are typically devoid of provenance, and they continually reinscribe false notions of neutrality while privileging a white, cis, heteronormative dominance. In contrast, MOL is an open platform with downloadable models that accurately represent the world we inhabit. MOL disrupts historical gatekeeping performed by “neutral” marketplaces by offering 3D modeled objects that span a wide range of identities, abilities, and affinities. In addition to critiquing existing 3D model storefronts, MOL builds community by offering an economic system of reciprocity, where technological representations of things are exchanged to produce meaningful relations and effects.

Explore the prototype

Concept

Missing Objects Library explored: feminist technology, activist art, social practice, socio-technical pedagogy, radical hospitality as art, artificial intelligence training databases, 3D modeling, photogrammetry

In our research as new media artists, we have found that commercial 3D image libraries (virtual storefronts with digital assets used in game design, special effects, etc) almost exclusively sell depersonalized and culturally non-specific, generic, 3D objects for mass consumption and mainstream use. Employed across many domains, from VR experiences to corporate marketing, these models are conservative in form and structure, and anchored in a capitalist studio production mold. Biases within the 3D model marketplace undergird marginality and shape a narrative that misrepresents the “real world” – erasing diverse experiences, voices, and cultural objects.

Our idea emerged because we were frustrated by the lack of cultural diversity that we found on these websites when we were teaching students about 3D modeling or when we were designing our own creative research.

Process

Over the past 6 months, we curated and produced several missing objects collections while also supporting UC Berkeley’s diverse students in creating curio cabinets for MOL. Based on these experiences, we see a series of public workshops as a part of the natural evolution to this larger scale work so that we can reach a wider audience who would like to become participants. We also plan to have a physical installation of several cabinets in an exhibition in 2024.

We are still focused on addressing the inequities that we see in 3D model storefronts. The core idea has not changed, but we have become interested in building out a physical installation of the project using projection mapping and sculptural forms, whereas we originally planned to work in an exclusively digital domain.

Lessons

Our biggest lesson was related to time. Creating digital art takes longer than expected. Ironically, we tell this to our students, and yet we experienced a time crunch firsthand when we began building out the project. When you craft objects that have deep meaning for you, they must be done with care and intention, which takes time.

Collaboration takes time. When creating a shared project, it takes much longer to confer with your groupmates than you’d predict, but the incredible momentum that comes with sharing a vision through continual conversation is priceless.

Future

Community-invested social practice projects are predicated on the belief that artists should at some point be able to step back from their position as organizers and allow newer voices to take center stage and steward the work. As strange as it might sound, we hope that the Missing Objects Library doesn’t need us in 10 years! It would be great if the world were a more ethical, equitable place, and we saw those values reflected in the digital world that stands in parallel with the physical one. If that were the case, MOL could become obsolete, and that is our ideal outcome.

* The opinions expressed in the project documentation are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, or Gray Area