WARNING:
Don't try this at home. Prolonged immobilization can lead to all sorts of nasty health problems, including deep vein thrombosis ("economy class syndrome") which often causes permanent injury or even death.
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I am a "famous" artist. Not Hollywood-level famous, but famous by my own standards: I am occasionally recognized on the street. My specialty is sculptures, often in plastic, and often in bright colors. It is not the kind of art that usually leads to public recognition, but I was very lucky to cause a major scandal two years ago in Berlin.
At a major art exhibition, I participated with an installation of colorful plastic animals engaged in sexual activities. Three rams (green, shocking pink and red) were having sex with a dark blue dog, while four yellow rabbits and a cat were raping a dark violet cow. In the background, a leopard, two penguins and a dolphin were having an orgy. Not really an installation that would cause any upheaval, if I hadn't given it the title "Multiculturalism". I honestly had no political motivation behind it, and had not thought much about the title. But after two calm days, an angry letter in a German newspaper ignited the gunpowder. The next day the left wing accused me of playing into the hands of the neo-nazis, the right wing claimed that I was attacking the moral foundations of western society; and everybody else were sure I was mocking their favorite standpoint. People started picketing outside the museum, and soon they began fighting each other and the police. I was making front page news.
The very next day the director of the museum had my installation removed for reasons of security. Even better, several politicians demanded its removal, so the press could present it as if the museum had bowed to political demands. For an artist, nothing is better than censorship, my fame was assured, and sales picked up. Eventually, I was able to lease the workshop I am using now.
At the ground floor, I have a small exhibition hall, open to the public. Behind is the workshop proper, separated by the exhibition by a curtain in the doorway. Upstairs, a small apartment with a bedroom and a kitchen. I was in the exhibition hall arranging a small sculpture when she walked in.
I did not immediately recognize her, although when she told me her name I knew she was far better known than me. Let us call her Susan, for obvious reasons I cannot tell her real name. Susan is one of our most successful businessmen. For the last five years she had been the director of one of this country's largest corporations, and has expanded its field of operations to most of Western Europe. She was a good-looking woman, although not a striking beauty, in her late thirties, around 160 cm, with medium-length blonde hair and a body shaped by regular exercise. But what I noticed most was her presence, she was self-confident without being intimidating.
She asked if I had time for a chat, and I invited her into my workshop. I immediately saw the possibility of a lucrative bread-and-butter project. You may think that as an artist it would be below me to prostitute myself with art projects where the customer decides what should be done, but the truth is that the life of an artist is 90 percent bread-and-butter projects, which in turn finance the 10 percent projects of real artistic value. And with a potential customer in the financial super league, I saw the possibility of a great bread-and-butter project. As so many before me, I grossly underestimated Susan!
Susan explained how their corporate headquarter was placed in an old manor house surrounded with a garden. Slowly, she was populating this garden with sculptures, some from famous artists, some from unknown. I did not dare to ask which category she would place me in.
"And now I would like a very special statue in our garden," she explained. "It should be one of your colorful plastic statues, with me as the model, although that should not be public knowledge."
"OK," I answered, perhaps a bit disappointed by her obvious narcissism. "What kind of statue did you have in mind?"
"It should be a nude. It should be life-size. And it should be smurf-blue," she explained with conviction.
"Smurf-blue? Okay... Why exactly smurf-blue?"
"Well, to me it is the most reasonable choice. It cannot be any natural skin color, that would make the statue look indecent. It cannot be white, for then it would look like cheap fake marble. It cannot be black, since that could be seen as a political statement about race. So it has to be a bright, unnatural color. Giving it an unnatural color will also make it less likely that I am recognized, after all putting up nude statues of yourself is kind of bad taste." She smiled at me. "And I happened to like smurfs as a kid, they still have a place in my heart."
It almost made sense. "Smurf-blue it is, then. How do you want to look?"
I found some paper and a crayon in a drawer, and prepared to sketch the statue.
"I want the statue to be an exact replica of me. Not some kind of hero-portrait or supermodel. It should be exactly as I look like in reality, including all the small flaws of my body, the slight sagging of my breasts, the ugly wart on my lower back, everything."
"OK, that is not a problem. It actually makes it easier, I can do a 3D scan of your body. But are you sure this is how you want it? Most of us have a rather clear picture of how we look like, but it does not always correspond completely with reality. You may not think it really looks like you." I guess I could have said this in a more tactful way, I realized how badly it could be misunderstood as soon as I had said it.
"I will run the risk of being disappointed by my own looks." She laughed at my slight embarrassment. "So this 3D scanning, how do we do it? I assume it requires some equipment, so perhaps you can arrange an appointment with the guys doing the scan."
"Actually, I can do it myself. I have a hand-held scanner, it takes maybe twenty minutes to scan your entire body a number of times, and another five minutes for the computer to reconstruct a realistic 3D model. So in principle I can do it now, or we can set up an appointment for later."
"Now would be fine. Should I just strip down?"
"Sure". I drew the curtain to the empty exhibition hall, and looked away while she disrobed. Then I found my scanner, and turned to look at her. Wow, she looked good. We started by trying a few poses that would look good on a statue, before settling on one with one arm raised into the air, and another down along the side. It did not look like a particularly natural stance, but is sure made her look good. Then I began scanning, holding the bow-like scanner in the middle, and moving it slowly up and down her body, while the red laser played over her curves. She stood completely still, although her eyebrows moved in surprise when I moved the scanner between her legs to scan her crotch from below.
"Sorry, but I need a complete scan of the entire body, so the shell the computer creates does not have any holes. I can repair minor defects, but it is a lot easier to do a proper scan to begin with."
"A proper improper scan, you mean," she teased.
"I am done now. Let's download it to the computer and see if it is OK. But you stood very still, I would be surprised if there are any problems."
"Otherwise I'll be ready for a rescan."
We went to the computer and I connected the scanner. The 3D reconstruction software began working. Susan waited patiently, and stark naked. I offered her a robe, but she declined.
"What's the point? You have already seen me naked."
So we waited in silence. A few minutes later a wireframe figure of Susan appeared on the screen. A few clicks, and it became a solid figure. A few clicks more, and it was blue. Not smurf-blue, but close enough. I began turning it slowly, looking for scanning flaws.
"This looks great," Susan interjected. "Can you zoom in on the back, I want to see if the scanner caught the wart."
I zoomed in, and soon found a tiny bump. "That small? Does the scanner have problems registering small features?" she asked.
I looked at her back. "It really is a tiny wart, I think it got scanned perfectly. Actually, this looks good, I can use these scans and get it produced."
"Good. What about the practical matters. What will this cost, and when can you deliver." This would have been the latest natural time to get dressed, but she still remained naked. I made a price estimate. It was not cheap, since I had to get the statue 3D printed, and few places could print such large objects. Knowing her economic situation, I may have overestimated some of the expenses a bit, but she agreed to my price and we settled a date where she would come and look at the result.
Finally, she dressed and left. I wondered why she had stayed naked that long. Had I missed an opportunity? Having sex with the customers is usually a pretty bad idea, and if her nakedness was an invitation... Well, she was a powerful business leader, used to getting things her way. If she had wanted sex, she would have made it clear.
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A month later, the life-size statue of Susan was in my workshop. I had it mounted on a low socket, and gave it the title "Corporate Smurf". Susan approved it, and we had it placed in the garden outside her headquarters.
Then a couple of months passed. I occasionally saw her mentioned in the press, but it was mostly boring business news that doesn't interest me. Nevertheless, I would usually at least skim newspaper articles about her. The only thing at all remarkable was the claim by a tabloid newspaper that she was "resigning". That turned out to be a major overstatement, she was reorganizing the board of directors, delegating many aspects of day-to-day business to subordinates. She stated that she needed to do that to be able to relax in the weekends, and perhaps take a one-week vacation now and then. According to the business analysts, she had offloaded the boring day-to-day administration while keeping almost all the power and influence in her own hands. Pretty smart, in my opinion.
Then one day she walked in the front door. Once again, she arrived at a dead time, with nobody else in the exhibition hall. I took her to the workshop, and drew the curtain.
"Are you satisfied with your new sculpture?"
"I most certainly am," she answered.
"And have you been recognized."
"I have. It took almost two month, but now they all know it is me. Although no-one has dared mentioning it to me. None at all." It clearly amused her.
"Then how do you know?" I was genuinely curious.
