3D Scans Transform Ancient Greek Sculptures into Rippling Neon Puddles

Reviving and remixing the work of ancient artisans is definitely a trend for artists working in three virtual dimensions—just take the controversial, maybe-a-hoax, maybe-a-hack 3D scans of the Bust of Nefertiti. Turns out, though, that scanning an anonymous bust is much easier to get away with, and can yield some mind melting, time warped results. Tripping Ghosts is a collaborative music video by artists Elias Artista and David Sanderson, who worked to animate two 4th-century BC Greek sculptures to look like what your skin feels like when you’re way too fucking high.

Artista and Sanderson met a music festival in Kiev some years ago, when Sanderson was performing with The Future Sound of London’s Amorphous Androgynous alias. The duo kept in touch, and when Sanderson, the musician behind Jumjum Records, released the song Tripping Ghosts around the same time Artista was working on a 3D scan of an ancient sculpture of Aphrodite, he realized the two actually went together pretty well.

Screenshot via

“Elias felt deeply the video images flowed with Dave's vocals perfectly, the camera circles around the marble body of ancient goddess, in complete adoration, weaving the purple and black waves enveloping her body and face. Erotic, and definitely psychedelic,” the pair tells The Creators Project.

The artist used photogrammetry to give the sculptures—one, the bust of Aphrodite; the other, a marble head of a girl from a tomb, both scanned in the Greek galleries at the Royal Ontario Museum—rippling, watery textures in contrasting neon blues, pinks, and greens.

The title perfectly fits the video’s content, if “ghosts” are taken to mean the 4th-century creators of the original sculptures, who probably would have felt like they were tripping, if they could have seen this hi-tech video in the year 350.

“Its original creator probably couldn't assume that some 2400 years after he finished it, his creation will have its own little revival in the 21st century AD in a form of music video, a form of art unknown not just to the ancient Greeks, but even to relatively recent times," Artista says. "The era of VR, 3D scanning and printing is changing our society and culture very rapidly. And I feel great pleasure in being able to witness and participate in this process at the beginning at the very dawn."

Watch Tripping Ghosts in full below.

See more of David Sanderson’s work on his imprint’s website, and Elias Artista here.

Related:

[NSFW] Light Projections Transform the Female Nude

3D Scanning the European Refugee Crisis

3D Body Scans of Drag Queens Become Virtual Reality Art

Distorted 3D-Scanned Faces Are the Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of