Still vs Moving | Organic vs Manmade | Time and Space
This semester has me gravitating towards ‘less waste’ and using recycled materials where possible. Sitting in a friends kitchen, listening while he complained about a recent project of his as a structural engineer / project manager. In particular he was discussing the construction waste due to designers trying to ‘re-invent the wheel’; resulting in mounds of excess materials ending up in the skip bin (not to mention building budgets being blown sky high and taxpayers money being flushed own the proverbial toilet), internal questions were raised around universities, makers and even the general public being more mindful of their own project materials and resources.
Can we collaborate with construction sites and project managers to source these perfectly intact byproducts of eccentric design? Thereby reducing rubbish while lessening the financial burden of sourcing new materials – sometimes for temporary installations that will add more waste to our environment. There are available resources if we as artists take the time to establish connections within our community, build relationships and perhaps offering trade of goods or services for these materials. In my case, I needed a pile of materials for this semesters project and instead of buying new 2×4 timber from the hardware store – I cooked dinner for my project manager friend.
‘The Bridge’ is a project that encompasses both the practicality of NOT re-inventing the wheel by using da Vinci’s self-supporting bridge, while I continue to critically think about Bridges as a concept during the making period. What makes a bridge? Does is need to be a physical construction that is climbed or conquered? What do bridges in our learned language represent? Architecture, new life, adventures, still, supporting, permanent but allowing for expansion and exploring. Inventive.
Bridge research – architectural, tensegrity and sculptural inspiration:
Waterview shared cycle path, Auckland 
Old coach road arch tunnel, Ohakune 
Old coach road bridge, Ohakune 
Red Paper Bridge by Steve Messam using vernacular architectural principles. 
Maya Lin – art and architecture 
Maya Lin Used 54,000 Marbles to Model the Chesapeake Bay using satellite imagery from NASA 
Tensegrity designs 
Kenneth Snelson tensegrity designs 
Friends instagram – liked how the furling flax took on a sculptural form 
Luciana Lamothe
100 Degrees, 2015
Luciana Lamothe
26 Layers, 2015
Bridges in nature 
Bridges as a means of supply (objects connecting and carrying) 
Imagination and childs play – forming relationships 
Communication bridges 
Scaffolding – construction and architecture
Bridge Construction:
popsicle prototype 
tension base support (not needed but leads into research around tensegrity design) 
further developments required to make a ‘safe’ walking / ridable bridge 
ready for woodshop 
Starting with the simple straight cuts for a lap join. Decided to cut both sides to allow for 18mm additional ply planks if desired. (cutting only one beam would make the plank too weak to support weight) 
Chiseling away to reveal the joins. 
Lots of cuts! 
Working out the angles for the ‘woven’ through planks. 
The angle needs to be flush without compromising the strength of the bridge. The design is to be self-supporting without the use of additional screws or glue. 
20 degrees seemed accurate. 
Cutting out the angles. 
Assembling the bridge solo was tricky (will try assembling on it’s side and flipping over next time) 
Joins are nice and flush. 
Ends/ legs will be cut shorter to reduce angle a bit. I decided against adding the 18mm ply planks as this means I would need to secure with fixtures over having a temporary structure that can be rebuilt over and over. Would like to extend this concept further of re-build and ‘building bridges’ within communities (interactive installation). 
Transporting the ‘puzzle’ back to my studio for further study and development. 
Adding some distressed colour to the wood to mimic use and moss growth. 
What about building bridges within our communities? During lockdown 2.0 conversations around mental health were highlighted: people feeling isolated, depressed, bored. How can art establish connections and ‘bridge the social distancing gap’? Perhaps through collaborative works and reaching out to the wider community. Establishing trade as a form of payment: goods for other goods, services or koha. Dissecting trading as method in making.
Resources can be re-used or re-invented if time is taken to have these discussions, encourage communities to work together, donate, trade and actually speak to each other! A social construct that already dying from anti-social behaviours long before Coronavirus made us even socially distant). Each lockdown not only confining me physically but challenging my time, space and emotional capability to keep the creative momentum going. Adaptation becomes key to invent or re-invent.
Adding More Sculptures to the Mix
Kinetic Sculpture research – looking at ways of transforming salvaged wood and metal materials into new forms. The ways solid structures can be altered through rotation to create fluid and repetitive movements. The manual stimulations from human interference adding life and animation to immobile objects.
I also looked at other artists and philosophers who study sustainability and anthropocene (within contemporary art). Joyce Campbell’s photography exhibition at Te Uru gallery – On the Last Afternoon: Disrupted Ecologies, which portrays complex ecological systems through combining analogue and digital processes.
Her work reminding me of Hyperobjects, a term coined by British-born professor Timothy Morton, who refers to this ecological description as “things that are massively distributed in time and space relative to humans”. Everything from natures black holes, the biosphere or our solar system to the human production of Styrofoam and plastic, “Hyperobjects, then, are “hyper” in relation to some other entity, whether they are directly manufactured by humans or not. Hyperobjects have numerous properties in common.” He goes on to describe hyperobjects changing human art and experience in the aesthetic dimension during the Age of Asymmetry. They are “objects in their own right”. They make visible the fragility of all entities in a unique form of realism. 1
1. Timothy Morton, “An Introduction to Hyperobjects,” in Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), p. 1-2.
Wall Spinner Construction:
The initial concept was to create movement against fabric in a wave pattern (based on research of similar kinetic designs) 
The drill wasn’t long enough to go through each piece. My solution was to cut them in half, line up the holes and rejoin them. 
Shish kebab in the making on salvaged rusty rebar. 
I had trouble getting the fabric to flow with the initial design, there just wasn’t enough movement for my satisfaction. I tested adding a ‘spike’ to the design. 
Testing the spike – now we are seeing some more interesting movement 
Drilling the spike holes in a pattern that allows for movement to run at different times across the fabric as the handle is turned. 
How to mount this onto a wall? 
I would need a design that would allow me to remove the kebab (to make any adjustments and move to my final exhibition space later on) 
I also wanted the mounts to be flush with another bar at the top (initially because I thought I would need the space off the wall for better movement but later decided to add an audio aspect)
U Sculpture Construction: I may have bitten off more than I could chew with this one. A temperamental design with a lot of mishaps along the way. Usually as a result of not knowing what I needed until it was too late (the downside of a constantly evolving work) I nearly ended up throwing the whole sculpture away when after numerous tests, I couldn’t get the wiring to work after the final soldering. A combination of staring at the same evolving project for months and lack of sleep this final week had me at breaking point and overlooking some simple troubleshooting. While this was my most challenging piece to date, I don’t regret making all the mistakes as I learned so many new skills along the way. The inspiration for this piece was from studying kinetic string sculptures with changing wave patterns and then working out how to adapt those designs to use a metal chain instead.
Starting point – no idea what I’m making but I like to bend metal and repurpose scraps. 
Nice shape, now to make it stand up (this is also where I did some more research on kinetic sculptures to include movement to this piece). 
Cleaning up the metal after welding. My OCD kicked in and I ended up re-welding some missed areas (also used a dremel to get in those tight spots). 
Figuring out how to hide the wires bu cutting some slots in the threaded bar. 
Initial battery test with on/off switch. 
Changing the design a bit for a less bulky motor mount. 
Each DC motor needs to be wired up and running in the same direction (when facing each other) so the string/chain doesn’t get tangled. 
Two batteries are required for enough power to run both motors but I will wire up a third to increase time (but not voltage- I don’t want the chain to spin too fast and the weight of using chain over string should slow the motors down enough for some interesting effects). 
Figuring out how the copper tape is going to work to act as a conductor for one of the wires. Unfortunately I didn’t buy insulated adhesive tape so I’ll need to seal the metal with a coating of some sort. 
Crude mockup of how the tape and wire will work (with metal being the conductor for the other wire) 
Multiple clearcoats on to insulate the copper tape – tricky in the corners and I did end up using a bit of electrical tape at the base when initial testing shorted the circuit. 
Two spaced out bearings were required for a stable spin. This bike part came in handy. I just added some shrink plastic to the 12mm bar for a snug fit inside the axel. 
Making a little box to house the batteries, Ideally I would have designed a brushless motor (so the wired axel can spin free from switch) but being short for time had me design this alternative so everything can spin without the wires getting twisted up. 
I designed it so the lid pops off making it easy to change the batteries if needed. 
I had some issues finding small enough screws for the (borrowed) bearing unit so resorted to a 3D printed option. Unfortunately it didn’t have a high enough axel (and I didn’t feel comfortable creating more plastic waste to print again) so decided to use the original housing and a recycled side clamp instead. 
Starting to come together. 
Working out how I’m going to display the piece. 
A large L-bracket sandwiched between some salvaged wood should provide enough support. I decided to switch the design around as it will be more stable this way (vertically attached to wall). 
Wiring up through the axel 
fixing the bearings to stand 
Making a box that slides over to cover the bearings unit. 
Now the tricky part of soldering onto seperate pieces of copper tape (as directly onto the applied tape may have resulted in burning the clearcoat and messing up the insulation). Resin helped! 
I did end up using a backup motor when one connection was too damaged to work properly (copper tab wasn’t connected properly) also a multi-meter was essential to finding any connection issues. 
Soldering to the (stainless?) steel was near impossible. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the addition of resin (liquid option would have been even better). 
upcycled a choc block to find something “grabby” enough to connect the chain to the motor. 
I used 2 sets of brackets to secure to the wall. 
Happy with the overall result but wanted to add the organic elements back into the sculpture. 
I dyed some (real but dry brown) moss with different shades of green paint before gluing sections over painted wood. 
FAIL Gallery: what NOT to do
Attempted to make a secure bearing housing from wood but didn’t have the right sized tools. 
Used cheap glue to attach spikes – also should have beveled them first for better fit. Had to re-do 
Made a wooden rotating handle on a threaded bar that just “unwound” as the spikes rubbed against the fabric (also initially used fabric that wasn’t stretchy enough applying too much pressure) 
This wasn’t needed, ended up changing to a crank handle (I also designed some gears in both Solidworks and Tinkercad but didn’t end up using) 
Attempted to manually thread the base stand of sculpture so I could attached another longer threaded bar after deciding to make it rotate on bearings. 
Oops! Too much pressure snapped the weld. 
Also REALLY hard to get it started and needed to bevel edges quite a bit. 
Still couldn’t get it straight so ended up resorting to initial plan of just welding on a perfect machine threaded bolt. 
Didn’t think about copper needing insulation to work properly. 
Attempting to grown my own moss 
Very smelly recipe includes beer to help grow 
Initial moss test failed (lockdown didn’t help – being away from studio so couldn’t mist water daily).
Artist Statement
Wood, metal, fabric and fauna meld together in a time-warp of organic versus manufactured materials. Each element competing for visibility. Skip-bin salvaged wood is cut to precision and layered into a self-supporting puzzle bridge.
Black fabric stretches over the bones of a rotating bar fixed to the wall. The exposed handle invites to be turned, organic matter dancing with the vibrations.
A separate U-shaped metal sculpture stands tall with a little black on/off switch at the base. The delicate chain that connects each side is slack. This object can manually be spun but what happens if you flick the switch first and then rotate it?
Spinning bearings, motors, a crank handle and unyielding bridge juxtapose the different methods of human activated movement: even digital operations still requiring physical connections to function. Drawing inspiration from physics in architecture, kinetic wave sculptures, Timothy Morton’s hyperobjects and Joyce Campbell’s ecology photography, each action results in reaction – cause and effect.
Movement is created by human interference, whether it be moving over a stationary object, manually turning a handle or the flicking of a switch. When the room is empty, the movement stops. Objects become immobile and untouched, allowing nature to gradually reclaim and regenerate components. Mossy growth partially obscuring man-made materials, rust and decay – indicative of prolonged periods of time.
Sculpture that turns two ways – manually spun and motorized chain. The chain pattern changes as the sculpture rotates at different speed. 
Bones of the wall sculpture eerily stretch against black fabric as the handle is turned. Wood scrapes against metal in a noisy display of manual movement. 
Organic elements dance as the handle is turned. 
Dusty footprints on the bridge mark where others have climbed.
