The Parametrically Designed Mask was developed by Francisca Aroso, Javier Olmeda and Luis Fernando Odiaga during the Paremetric Design Seminar at IaaC MAA 2007/2008, with the tutorship of Marta Malé-Alemany and the assistance of Shane Salisbury

1.- Becoming someone else… In this project we were interested in questioning the actual human beauty and proportion archetypes. As we see an increment in customizing our own bodies mainly through advertisement and mass media, we have the possibility of customizing ourselves in any possible way. Body customization is a millenary tradition either for a desire of differentiating from oneself or as socially-driven act to feel part of a group or society. New technologies have contributed to fulfill our desires of customizing ourselves even to the nano level. As the human genome is revealed, there is the possibility of customizing the human even before s/he is born. Given this example, we came up with the idea of creating a customizable mask. This object fits perfectly within the scope of the project as we see in it the epitome of the intention of becoming someone or something else. The possibility of covering our skin with a second one has been a powerful tool that seduces us to explore new ways of dealing with ourselves, and now we can apply the logics behind the TopSolid Software to create customized masks based on each one`s specific measurements.

Conceptual references

a) Orlan is a French artist, born May 30, 1947 in Saint-Étienne. She lives and works between Los Angeles, New York and Paris. In 2006–2007 she is invited as a scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. She is on the board of administrators for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and is a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Cergy. She is mostly famous for her work with plastic surgery in the early to mid nineties, but she has a body of work that started long before, and that still today, is evolving and innovating. The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, which started in 1990 involved a series of plastic surgeries in the course of which the artist started to morph herself with some of the most well known paintings and sculptures including Mona Lisa. Her work poses questions on female beauty archetypes and the representation of the body. To what extent are we willing to customize ourselves? http://www.orlan.net/

b) Jake and Dinos Chapman Zygotic Acceleration

2.- Data taken from IAAC MAA Students, Golden section in the face, MBA mask. Each one of us (from our team) was interested in searching for the ideal human proportions: the head in relation to the height (Javier), the torso (90-60-90) (Francisca), and the facial dimensions (Luis). We teamed up because this common denominator allowed us to put into question the “ideality” of human beauty an what is beautiful or ugly. We started taking different measurements of the 27 students an then compared them with “ideal” numbers based on several aesthetic “archetypes” to prove how ideal our proportions were or how unreal are these archetypes of human beauty.

3.- Translating Data in to a parametric model using TopSolid, we started by looking for a way to construct a sort of virtual machine with the software which by affecting a parameter everything else gets updated. These preliminary models were based in the measurements that Francisca took of the chest, waist and hips. Combining the measurements of 5 students we achieved cilindrical-shape structures that enabled us to explre more in depht the Software. We were looking to make some kind of doll, relating it to the Barbie and Ken models.

Taking the model to the next level meant simplifying yet more the parameters, reducing it to only two. The hyperbolic shapes yield a sort of wireframe mesh that becomes the surface, or skin, being altered to fit any face by introducing two values: (a) the distance between eyebrows and lips, and (b) the width of the outer eyes. The surface/mesh is taken into Rhino Software to develop what is going to be the virtual mold of each mask, which is milled in a CNC Milling Machine with a specific texture unique to each mask.

4.- The fabrication process starts with the Master Model being updated with Excel files containing the measurements (a, b) of each the 27 students. Thus a single model have the possibility to yield masks for every person, given the right measurements.

Is possible to develop the final mask using two fabrication methods: Rapid Prototyping Printing and CNC Milling. In the Rapid Prototyping process, we saved the surface as a stereolithography, which enables us to print it without having to create a mold to cast the mask. With this process, all the textures must be made beforehand in the Rhino Software, as the printing process is what-you-see-is-what-you-get.