Welcome to A Bit of Personal Space––a public exploration of the spaces we inhabit, work, and find comfort in. Building upon existing, free methods of photogrammetry, A Bit of Personal Space offers a web-based engine for exploring three-dimensional mapped spaces, along with a corresponding platform for playing and submitting archived geometries.
This project began in November of 2022 ago as a simple game engine I had fashioned as a present for my girlfriend––the idea being to forever capture and make replayable the rooms in which we have lived throughout our relationship. The desire to share my work led to a more public-facing version with cleaner controls and a database of spaces, which, after much iteration, finally settled into the more polished version you see before you.
The scope of A Bit of Personal Space encompasses all places one might find to be per- sonal. However, the focus lies mainly in studios and bedrooms––where the owner themself is visible in the makeup of the space.
For example, the project allows for an interesting juxtaposition between the only two artists whose studios are currently in the system: on the one hand, sculptor Peter Kirkiles’ larger-than-life metal recreations of small rulers and tools give to an industrial-feeling studio, strewn haphazardly with heavy cables and massive equipment––the staples of metalwork. Yet we also have painter and sculptor Joe Fig with a tiny, perfectly organized workspace––in which he replicates in miniature form, with the same degree of perfection and tidiness that his own studio possesses, the studios of artists like Pollock and Rauschenberg. For both Kirkiles and Fig, their bits of personal spaces are an exact reflection of their work.
A Bit of Personal Space exists in the context of much effort taken towards mapping spaces and studios through digital means––recently, for example, Bruce Nauman's 2020 "Nature Morte" at the Sperone Westwater Gallery, where Nauman allowed traversal of a small mapped portion of his studio through an iPad interface. Where my project tries to find its niche is in scope and accessibility––by possessing an ever-growing collection of spaces, and by being accessible on the web, from any device, perpetually. Furthermore, the code is all open source, and I gladly welcome any contributions.
This is hardly a static project, and the catalogue of spaces will continue to grow into the future––with more studios, and more spaces in general. If you have a space or studio you would like to contribute and are unsure of the process, or if you have any questions or comments at all, do not hesitate to reach out to me at evan.kirkiles@yale.edu.
Enjoy!
A Bit of Personal Space was shown at Yale's Center for Collaborative Arts and Media from December 1 to December 2, 2022. View the original wall text accompanying it here.