MAPPING
ECONOMIC ABSENCES
ECONOMIC ABSENCES
A digital archive documenting the afterlife of mass-produced toys with custom 3D scan textures
Collaboration participants:
Pat WingShan Wong, artist, illustrator, illustration educator; Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Ksenia Kopalova, illustrator, illustration educator, researcher; Arts University Bournemouth
Pat WingShan Wong, artist, illustrator, illustration educator; Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Ksenia Kopalova, illustrator, illustration educator, researcher; Arts University Bournemouth
How can objects portray their economic environment? And what happens to them when they are excluded from it?
Pat and Ksenia are exploring the afterlife of mass-produced collectibles - Snoopy toys from 1999 McDonald's Happy Meals. Distributed globally, they attracted collectors who believed in their future economic value and fans for whom they held personal significance. Today, after 25 years, these once-coveted Snoopy toys are abandoned and sold in flea markets, car boot sales, and via online marketplaces for second-hand goods.
In this small, but growing online archive Pat and Ksenia get these 1999 toys from sellers and collectors across Hong Kong, the UK, Russia, attempting to get a glimpse of the intertwining personal and economic histories around these objects. This archive uses the imperfections of 3d scanning and drawing to highlight the patchy, changing, irregular, disappearing stories behind these objects and their economic environments.
This 'Spanish' Snoopy comes from a private collection of an illustrator from London, Nick Peill, who scanned the toy and shared the story behind it.
Ksenia wrote it down in the texture gaps appearing as a by-product of 3D-scanning. These gaps do not affect the model, so the story is only visible when the model is exported and the texture file is viewed separately. In other words, the story disappears once the object takes shape.
Ksenia wrote it down in the texture gaps appearing as a by-product of 3D-scanning. These gaps do not affect the model, so the story is only visible when the model is exported and the texture file is viewed separately. In other words, the story disappears once the object takes shape.
'SPANISH' SNOOPY
Pat found this 'Finland’ Snoopy at the Sham Shui Po illegal flea market in Hong Kong.
Reworking the 3D model, she focused on the gaps and data loss in the 3D-scan. When creating a seamless 3D scan, AI expands the information about the texture making it seem continuous and unaffected by the differences in the angles and lighting in the photos of the object.
Pat highlights the 'stitched', collaged nature of these scans rejecting the machine-created smoothness that seeks to hide the imperfections through AI-bsed approximation. Using watercolours, a very “personal” material bearing a tangible trace of the artist’s hand, she interferes into the 3D-scan's calculated attempt at flawlessness and continuity.
Reworking the 3D model, she focused on the gaps and data loss in the 3D-scan. When creating a seamless 3D scan, AI expands the information about the texture making it seem continuous and unaffected by the differences in the angles and lighting in the photos of the object.
Pat highlights the 'stitched', collaged nature of these scans rejecting the machine-created smoothness that seeks to hide the imperfections through AI-bsed approximation. Using watercolours, a very “personal” material bearing a tangible trace of the artist’s hand, she interferes into the 3D-scan's calculated attempt at flawlessness and continuity.
'FINNISH' SNOOPY
Ksenia found this ‘English’ Snoopy on Avito, a classified advertisements website, and purchased from a seller in Moscow. She redrew the texture from a Polycam scan by hand in acrylics on paper, which caused inevitable misalignments and colour mismatches. Fragments of the Avito posts, messaging history with the collector, and the history of McDonald’s in Russia were included into the texture in diary-like fragments, forming a patchwork-like new texture for the same model.
Texts in the image:
‘Condition: used; Description: 1999; Peanuts Snoopy - 600 roubles; Detailed photos available’; ‘I suggest that you buy a toy and make a scan yourself:)’, ‘It was from a Happy Meal, bought for me at Maccies’, ‘Unfortunately, I would not be willing to share that kind of information’,
‘From 1990 to 2022, the American fast food chain McDonald's operated and franchised McDonald's restaurants in Russia’ (Wikipedia)
Texts in the image:
‘Condition: used; Description: 1999; Peanuts Snoopy - 600 roubles; Detailed photos available’; ‘I suggest that you buy a toy and make a scan yourself:)’, ‘It was from a Happy Meal, bought for me at Maccies’, ‘Unfortunately, I would not be willing to share that kind of information’,
‘From 1990 to 2022, the American fast food chain McDonald's operated and franchised McDonald's restaurants in Russia’ (Wikipedia)
'ENGLISH' SNOOPY
Pat found this ‘Norwegian’ Snoopy at Sham Shui Po, the night flea market in Hong Kong, and Ksenia redrew its texture by hand in pencil, incorporating bits of academic texts about the Hong Kong Snoopy case in 1998: ‘In other countries there is panic-buying of rice. People here are panic-buying a toy [Hong Kong Standard 1998)’ (Bosco Joseph et al.)
'NORWEGIAN' SNOOPY
Pat got this 'Scottish' Snoopy sealed in a bag, from a seller in Hong Kong, who had been involved in toy design business at some point and was knowledgeable about toy production.
The owner emphasised the quality of the well-maintained plastic, hence the toy never left the bag. That is why Pat scanned it as it is, in the bag, with the toy becoming object becoming oblique and the toy barely recognisable - a part of the reflections on the inaccessibility of the archives and personal stories behind the archival objects.
The owner emphasised the quality of the well-maintained plastic, hence the toy never left the bag. That is why Pat scanned it as it is, in the bag, with the toy becoming object becoming oblique and the toy barely recognisable - a part of the reflections on the inaccessibility of the archives and personal stories behind the archival objects.
'SCOTTISH' SNOOPY
Pat scanned this 'Irish' Snoopy also found at Sham Shui Po, and specifically focussed on the blurry parts of the texture files. When creating a texture file, 3D-scanning software calculates approximations between the patches of photos, and Pat stressed those either with deliberate line, gold texture, or colour.
'IRISH' SNOOPY
‘American’ Snoopy scanned by a collector and vintage goods shop owner Emily May Anscombe, who purchased it at a carboot sale from a person who was selling his grandad's belongings, since the grandad wanted to go travelling around the world and was getting rid of his belongings, including his toy collections.
Ksenia customised the texture featuring free maps, extrapolated into semi-abstract textures with AI, thus creating a patchy, ragged skin made of AI-conceived maps: what is this toy's travel history? And what would be the travel history of its first owner?
Ksenia customised the texture featuring free maps, extrapolated into semi-abstract textures with AI, thus creating a patchy, ragged skin made of AI-conceived maps: what is this toy's travel history? And what would be the travel history of its first owner?
'AMERICAN' SNOOPY
