Totems are three 3D printed forms of impossible sex toys, and three flat representations of the same forms printed on photography paper.

The forms were developed by analyzing online pornography viewing habits. A custom software was sniffing all incoming Web traffic at a location, sorting packets by destination IP address, time, and source IP address or domain name (if available). Domain names and IP addresses were checked for pornographic content with non-pornographic sites culled from the sorted data.

An application was written in Processing to model the data. Time was represented by the vertical axis, with each model symbolizing a single day. Individual bands represented time spent on a single site (although rapid clicking through many sites sometimes resulted in band overlap): the thicker the band, the more time spent. The radius of a band was determined by the amount of data downloaded from the corresponding site.

“Quickie” was so named because there was only a brief concentration of pornographic Web viewing over the course of one day. In “Work Safe?” it appeared as though large concentrations of pornographic Web viewing took place at the beginning and end of the day. “Vacation” was chosen for a full day of pornographic Web viewing. Besides, the form was inverted manually as a reflection of the introverted nature of such activity.

Chosen forms were exported to Rhino, where they were lathed, hollowed, and printed.

By Krister Olsson.