MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

72 Invented in 1823, and dubbed “Döbereiner’s Lamp” after its inventor, Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner, the original lighter was a converted flintlock pistol that used gunpowder to produce a flame. In their search for a way to have the artwork in two places at once, O’Brien and Isaac connected with Dr. Kate Hennessey, Reese Muntean, Conrad Sly, and Dr. Hannah Turner of Simon Fraser University—all researchers working on how technology can help museums preserve, protect or repatriate their collections. Over the course of four months, the team used 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry to create a complete digital “clone” of O’Brien’s artwork. The photogrammetry process took hundreds of photos of the blanket that were loaded into a networked software so multiple computers working simultaneously around the world could create a digital point cloud—essentially millions of tiny polygons that map out the surface of Sky Blanket. The juxtaposition of ancient techniques and cutting edge technology appealed to O’Brien. “I got excited watching (Sly) putting it into the computer and building it, stitching it together,” she says in the BC Studies interview. “When he turned it on its side and it looked like a mountain range, that was so cool to me.” While Sky Blanket has not been 3D printed, the Boarder X exhibit does feature a looping video that showcases each stage required for the creation of its digital rendition, which O’Brien, Sly, Turner and Hennessy have named “Wrapped in the Cloud”—a verbal play on the connection between the climate, clouds and mountains of the original blanket, and the digital manifestation of the object as a point cloud. For O’Brien, this technology may solve some of her larger artistic dilemmas. “I sometime struggle to make sense as I move through the commercial art world while also navigating the contemporary problems of the past. It seems strange to me to make something that is meant to be worn and danced in and then see it only as art in a display case. At the same time, I recognize that Native art has struggled to be recognized as art for so long. So I’ve seen this whole process as a step towards something very positive. 3D printed versions of historical artifacts in museums means the originals can come home.” At the same time, O’Brien isn’t ready to hand everything over to the computers just yet. “I think about my own practice and learning… The act of creating, it’s so tactile. If we give that all away to the machines for the purposes of understanding the world, it can remove a bit of that purpose.” “I sometime struggle to make sense as I move through the commercial art world while also navigating the contemporary problems of the past. It seems strange to me to make something that is meant to be worn and danced in and then see it only as art in a display case. Megann sending it in the Whistler backcountry. ASHLEY BAKER