Doppelganger is a digital portraiture project, consisting of digital prints and VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) 3D environments for web browser. The work reflects upon the historical tradition of portraiture and explores the potential of this in the 21st century.

Year: 2002 - 2004
Exhibitions: ‘Doppelganger’ Streetlevel Photoworks, Glasgow, Scotland; Galerie Werkstatt, Reinach, Switzerland; HOST, the New Media Scotland server (2004); ‘WEB3D Symposium’, Monterey, USA (2004); ‘Siggraph 2004’, Los Angeles Convention Center, USA (2004); JavaMuseum, Cologne, Germany (2004); ‘Reflection: Contemporary Visual Arts and Crafts in Edinburgh’ City Art Centre, Edinburgh (2011)

Doppelganger is a series of seven digital portraits, representing a group of international artists based in Basel, Switzerland, created while Beverley was artist-in-residence at iaab-International Artist Exchange and Studio Program Basel, for six months in 2002.

A digital portrait of each artist was created by adapting off-the-shelf computer generated human figures, in the 3D figure modelling software Poser, using photographic documentation of the sitter as reference material. The default digital fantasy proportions of the generic 3D figures were adapted by tweaking and editing the vast array of detailed modelling parameters, to create representative digital portraits of the artists. Digital clothing models and image texture maps, were intricately adapted, personalised and applied as digital collages, to ‘skin’ and ‘clothe’ the 3D figures. The range of real-world facial and body types of the seven artists pushed the limits of parameters set within the standards of the software, causing discrete glitches and ruptures in the digital models (particularly around the eyes). The resulting digital portraits were presented as a series of larger-than-life printed portraits, set within a blank digital white space.

The portraits were accompanied by digital representations of the artists’ personal portrait environments (either home or studio). An intricate process of photographic documentation, traced as line drawings and digital scanning was undertaken to create digital, drawn versions, of the sitters’ portraiture environment. These digital drawings were then brought together with the 3D figures using Real-time 3D VRML, a 3D modelling environment accessible through web browser, developed using MindAvenue’s Axel Edge, to create an otherworldly spatial portraiture environment. The artists were presented as a series of ‘character's’ distributed across Basel, located and via a simple digitally drawn map interface. The VRML environment was available through a web browser and navigated using a mouse, which allowed the audience to enter, zoom in and move around, the different portrait environments. The portraiture environments were additionally presented as a series of small digital prints.

The work reflects upon the historical tradition of portraiture, as an key genre in cultural history and explores the potential of this in the 21st century.

Portrait of artists: Franziska Furter, Gertrud Genhart, Lisa Hecht, Beverley Hood, Basim Magdy, Ville Niska and Senam Okudzeto.

Funded by: alt-w, Edinburgh College of Art, City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Arts Council, and New Media Scotland's. Supported by residencies at iaab, Basel, Switzerland and ISCP, New York City, NY, USA.