Proposals 1 and 2. Laser-cut composite vessels

As I am in digital fabrication now, I have grown more comfortable with the laser cutter and would like to expand my vocabulary with the machine and begin to make more sculptural pieces, compositing different layers together so that there are dynamic volumes, perhaps either being some sort of textured seating pad or a key valet that shares properties with a real topography.

1. KILIMANJARO KNEEL would be an ottoman that is the exact shape of Mount Kilimanjaro scaled down. KEWL.

2. Canyon Set would be a set of dishware and vessels using topographies from trenches and canyons of the world for you to use as you wish.  Here are some images of strategies I could take with the laser cutter along with some inspiring images.

Proposal 3: Children’s Toy out of Laser Cutter or AMS 3D Printer

My midterm project began as a coffee table but due to budgetary constraints and a very illuminating consultation at the Compleat Sculptor I have decided to make a wall lantern for my living room. I am continuing my use of nontraditional materials to exact handmade and ethereal results. Here are some inspiration images.

This includes a new approach to my previous work with cardboard and resin, where I now am constructing a mother mold for the resin to dry in as opposed to painting it on. I also learned that I was using the fragiler version of the Clear hardening Resin, #204 and what I needed is 200.

i made a test mold in my house and it took more than 24 hours to dry. Not viscous enough a solution.

I am using a 22 inch fluroescent light piece that will be housed on top of a plank of pine (painted white). I also need to ensure there is no moisture left in the cardboard which involves baking it at 100 degrees for 10 minutes (without it catching fire). Process. Duration. Product. Design.

Enjoy a mock up of the design. Tonight I build the mold out of acrylic and make the cardboard striated pieces which will serve as an embedded lighting grate. Will add on THEN.

I fix dried the cardboard with a glue soluti
on after etching, wetting, bending, and curving the pieces. After letting that dry, I formed the shapes and then painted three layers of resin over the surfaces.

I liked the surfacing, but for my midterm will work with a different resin that will harden and almost give the cardboard a glasslike quality to the touch. I also will make a relief mold so that there can be a flatter surface over the cardboard.

I was interested in an object that promotes comfort and feelings of safety, which was inspired by a series of design objects that were showcased at MoMA at the Safe: Design Takes on Risk exhibition a few years back: the Boezels- a Neo Human Toys line designed by Twan Verdonck for people with different development  and trauma issues.

For rigidity, I soaked the felt in a 1-1 glue/water solution and then dried it over a mold relief for it’s general shape. I then let it dry and returned to it, stitched the interior fur onto the outer felt lining, and then staplestitched the outside. I found the object to be successful as people intuitively cuddled the object and slipped their hand in for warmth.

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what is interesting in that is that there was less need for it as we were really investigating the brick and mortar aspects of 19th century new york habitation the first time whereas we were analyzing the structure of the tenement museum and the content of the tour itself for storytelling methodological practicum and merit for incorporation into our own oeuvres.

the dependence on a tour guide to distill empathy and awe is, in my opinion, limited and at times hand holding as an endeavor. i think the strength of their method is to have the literal layers of interior decorationas well as period items, along with of course photographs, serve as prompts for the way of life to be naturally traversed by the tour goers vis-a-vis the tourguide. i noticed that there is such a spatial dimension to their storytelling that in both circumstances we were overcrowding the tenement with our class sizes, which, in an unfortunate way, served the purpose of the museum to put you in the shoes as much as possible of new yorkers in the late 19th century.

in terms of data, i think there was a discrepency between hard numbers and also gestural leniencies that made the authority of the tour guide, and furthermore, the museum itself. sin some ways it made me long for a prepared audio tour like they have at moma or the met that are highly vetted by hierarchies of command and expertise. these often add clarity and allow me to sit still with the space itself and just soak it in on my own timeframe, in my own wavelength.

it also made me think about sleep no more, a revelatory spatial molestation by the theatregoer, allowing us to rip through the sets as if they are ours to lay ruin to, to investigate, and to configure our won truths.

i think it would be interesting to hybridize these practices into at least one of the tours offered at the tenement museum.

but i also want to be clear that i don’t fault them for their storytelling, i just would want them to continue expanding the way a museum could be operated as a storyteling facility as they move forward and evolve.

it also elementally deals with concepts of fame and celebrity that through the lens of who is elevated to an author of a wholly celebrated world is someone whose stories are worth decorating, embellishing, expanding, and specifying. i do not mean that an author that is wholly celebrated is universally understood to be great, rather, it is that the majority of public opinion in very set parameters that vary from artist to artist/, medium/medium goes in the favor of sending further readership and consideration into the larger collective conscious.

i decided to pick Jurassic Park as a trope that warrants further exploration and development from my point of view. not only is it a world that i imagined after reading the books, seeing the films, but more importantly, one that I believe to fit the criteria for a consensus of source popularity.
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the ire of isla nublar : a compendium companion to jurassic park’s flora and fauna

the increasingly violent smashes of the breaker waves against the volcanic rocks jutting along the shoreline were an ominous clue that the storm was imminent. all life not tethered to the land had backed into the mountains, awaiting the worst in the safest recesses of the island.

except for the velociraptors. they socialized on the sandy middle ground, aware of the weather, but also rejoicing in the difference of atmosphere. these were the species that relished newness and change of all the dinosaurs left on the island since the time that the last human abandoned ship. when this island was left to rot, but instead employed it’s own devices for a new meaning of travelling time without ever leaving it.

the velociraptors would kick around the debris of human activity as if they were bored schoolchildren during recess. on the beach today, their toy of choice was a truck tire, one that was brutally perforated by their razor sharp teeth and claws. Though very much dexterous, the raptors never acquired a delicacy with their appendages. That was not in their nature, for they knew well enough not how to tear through their kin’s skins by vocal and gestural communication that didn’t involve much physical contact, but every other creature or thing on the island was fair game for them to maim.

and now the animals sensed opportunity in the approaching storm. they had control of the lower half of the island, at the cost of four adults last spring in a territorial dispute with the allosaurus, a far more simple creature that doesn’t have the same respect or time frame for when it existed in the triassic. it’s as if they didn’t have a genetic-cultural imprint on how to relate to the allosaurus, much a microcosm of the inherent problems that face the humans when trying to corral and maintain these great beasts as if it were an over-sized menagerie. Time is the greatest enemy, no matter it being an invention. Perhaps space would be a greater descriptor for there was a vast amount that eclipsed before bringing us all together here, at Isla Nublar, watching from a brush tower the whimsical play the raptors were engaging in.

I looked over at Dr. Saddler as she peered through the binoculars, almost pinching her lids into them she was so avid in studying their behaviour. Her face was tense but also entirely curious. This was her cross to bear, and after nearly being killed multiple times by these very same animals during her first, now infamous visit, she still had a thirst for understanding them as complex and beautiful creatures.

She sensed my eyes on her and she smiled, looking out of the binoculars and down at her notebook, sitting in her lap, and said, “What do they know about this storm that we don’t, I wonder. I think this is a ritual they haven’t exhibited since the last time they changed the rules on Nublar.”

That made a shiver shoot down my spine. “Should we dispatch the helicopter? We signed up for this situation we are in this time.”

The sky was darkening, and the wind steadily drummed against the frond-filled wall, leading into inevitable danger. The raptors relished the sensation, bouncing on their hind legs and singing a throaty squawk up at the sky, thanking them for a new opportunity to expand their reign.

I texted the base, asking for rescue, scared I was wrong to do so.

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OK, just as I thought, i hated the outcome of my work. I think there was a flaw in my interest. My fascination with Jurassic Park as a trope really is focused on the animal life above the human drama. I think it’s like a movie where they insert false human drama so that the general public can register interest in the larger subject matter (ahem, Blood Diamond, Titanic, etc.).

Not a fan of fan fiction, or at least, the furthering of stories does not need to be formalized from my end.