The Divers V (right ortho)

Sophie Kahn’s work has long explored technology’s failure to capture the human body. For her series The Divers, she uses a 3D laser scanner that is ill-equipped to capture motion, so when she scans a moving and breathing person the device breaks down, generating layers of overlapping fragments. During a residency at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York, Kahn 3D scanned Butoh dancers and performance artists Azumi Oe and Sindy Butz during a live performance. In this model, “The Divers V,” which the artist has used in multiple artworks, two women share a quiet embrace, their gesture tender but ambiguous. The scan has been animated so the various overlapping sweeps fade in and out of translucency, revealing the architecture of the scan along with its fragmentation, and destabilizing the makeup of the image.