Abstract

"Body of Work" is a series of sculptures that come together to make a self-portrait. Over the course of a year, I explored one aspect of how I experience my body in each ITP course I took and created a body part sculpture or manifestation based on my reflection. In that time I created “A Nervous System (Brain)”, “Thoughts for Food (Stomach)”, “Bun in the Washing Machine (Womb)”, and “Interface (Face)”.

These sculptures cover a variety of themes including my anxiety, femininity, and my love of play and are expressions of trying to reconnect with my body. I thought a lot about my body as an interface, as inputs and outputs. Between these individual items are recurring visual symbols of spirals, mirror and reflection, color, illustration, and light. These elements have been deployed as a sometimes humorous deflection from serious topics.

The act of creating these artifacts was a very embodied practice because they were mostly all crafted by hand. Exploring different materials and electronic mediums is also important to my process.

The series invites the viewer to touch, listen, see, and engage with my embodiment. I curated a body scan meditation to go along with the items to prompt the viewer to touch base with their own relationship with their body. Spoiler alert: our relationships with our bodies can be complicated and are constant work.

Through this project I learned some key things:
Making can be therapy
Feel as much as you can (this can be hard!)
Your mind affects your body (so be careful with those feelings sometimes)
Leave space for rest and reflection
Share yourself and skills with people
Follow your intuitions, they can lead you to interesting places
And always embrace the cringe

Technical Details

This self portrait is a series of sculptures and artifacts that were created in an attempt to get in touch with my body. The series includes:

A printed circuit board sculpture in the shape of a brain that was designed in EAGLE with custom drawn silk screen imagery. The electronics were populated by hand and circuit prototypes were milled in the ITP shop using a Bantam Othermill. The system runs off of an Arduino Nano 33 IoT and uses an IR sensor to detect presence. The neurons and thoughts spiral faster the longer someone stands in front of it.

A hand-made pop-up book that is a journey to my stomach where all my anxieties and favorite foods live. Each mechanism was carefully prototyped (sometimes more than once) and illustrated. The book is bound in mat board and survived three exhibition days of user testing, even with kids reading aloud my biggest fears!

A hyper-feminine washing machine curiosity portal. This kinetic sculpture is activated by a stepper motor and bearing system. The enclosure is built with wood and hand painted. The washing machine is “washing” many stereotypically feminine items: acrylic nails, glitter, butterflies, small felt underwear. The door opens to reveal sparkly tampons, pulsating light, and mirrored wall.

A digital synthesizer module utilizing a Teensy 4.1 and Audio Shield. The module is a step sequencer which plays back different samples that I recorded from my own body: swallow, slurp, snort, snot, etc. The clock speed can be set by a potentiometer or by an incoming CV signal from the brain sculpture. The electronics are installed on a custom face-plate which resembles my own face and enclosed in an acrylic box.

A 3D scan of my head done by NYU’s LaGuardia Studio. I used this asset to create a projection of my head bouncing around in a box using Unity (similar to the projections made by luxury car doors or DVD screen saver) and a 3D-printed bust.

Various doodles I made of myself over the course of the year.

100+ forms which I crowd-sourced from the viewers of my piece asking them to check in with their own bodies through a guided body-scan meditation.

Research/Context

These are some of the things I read while working on my thesis project:

Your Body is Not Your Body, short story compilation
The Wisdom of Your Body, Hillary L McBride, PhD
The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life, Jessica Riskin
Portraiture, Shearer West

These are some of the artists and works that influenced this project:

Tim Hawkinson, Emoter
Kelly Heaton
Sarah Petkus, She Bon
Brian Oakes
Laura Callaghan
Neri Oxman
Milford Graves, A Mind-Body Deal
And many others!

Further Reading

For more information on process and inspirations, feel free to check out my blog.
https://www.priyankamakin.com/blog/category/itp:%20thesis