Post-lenticular Landscapes

How does one reimagine a landscape that is one of the most-photographed locations in the world? In the spring of 2016, ScanLAB Projects set out to the Yosemite Valley with terrestrial laser scanners to find out. The artists captured over 150 scans of the iconic landscape, many taken from the same vantage points used by their photographer-predecessors Ansel Adams and Eadweard Muybridge. The expedition was not without its challenges, including the park’s vast scale and numerous waterfalls, which both pushed the scanning technology to its limit.

Hyundai, the Art + Technology Lab’s presenting sponsor, provided the expedition with a Santa Fe SE SUV. In a nod to the traveling studios of Adams and Muybridge—who frequently worked on-site and out of their vehicles—ScanLAB adapted theirs into a base of operations, where they could review and process their data. Displayed on LACMA’s Zev Yaroslavsky Plaza, the vehicle was again converted, this time into a digital diorama presenting a ghostly 3D landscape of one our most popular national parks.