Soda Can Mobile

I spent most of the class times just cutting up the cans and messing around with them. So many ideas went through my head of what I wanted to make. I thought of doing a series of flowers, a rocket, candle-holders, and stars in space. Then, I looked up different baby/crib mobiles online to see different examples. I liked the idea, but I wanted to take it a bit further. Instead of the nice and simple baby mobiles, I wanted to create something that was overwhelming to look at. I experimented with using the cans to look like flower/star objects. I made a total of eight, all with different designs. Other parts of the cans were used-top, bottom, body. I like how the sheets (after cutting) were able to crumple up. I 

also kept the color of the cans in mind as I wired everything together. I wanted to include a variety of different colors all spread out.

Most mobiles play music. For this reason, I thought Biddle Music Building was the perfect place to put the mobile because there is always music playing there. I put up the mobile around midnight, when not many people were there. So, I wasn't able to observe people's reactions. I went back the next day to observe. However, my mobile wasn't hanging anymore! I left my phone number and email address with a lady in the office just in case they found it anywhere. A few days later, I received a phone call saying that they found it. I retrieved my mobile and decided to take it to my room. I got the weirdest looks as I carried it back to West. Some people smiled and told me it was really cool. Others would look at it critically, trying to figure it out. I got a few comments about dangerous it looked. I hung it up in my room because I didn't have anywhere else to put it. Whenever people came in, the first thing I heard was "WHOA!" Some said it was really cool and kept asking me questions about it. Others told me that it was dangerous and that I should move it to somewhere where it would be less hazardous. 

View from below

Some friends who helped me put the mobile up.

Soda Can Puppet Theater

For this project, it took me an extremely long time to figure out exactly what to create using soda cans. Pencil and paper are usually my choice materials, so I found it quite difficult to find inspiration for this project, as I did not know what I should do with the cans and how to use them in an interesting way. I also do not consider myself a particularly creative person. I am good at recreating things I see around me, but it takes while for me to come up with my own creation.

My initial plan for the can project was to create something that would hang outside and somehow make use of the wind. Ideally, I would have been able to make something that used the wind to move in interesting ways, perhaps turn, move up and down, spin, or even do all three. Unfortunately, I could not quite work out the mechanics of the interaction between wind and cans, so I ended up going in a different direction. I then thought about making a model of something. I first tried a boat, inspired by my roommate's love of paper boats, but I had a lot of trouble shaping the cans into the form of a boat. To really be able to recreate a boat, I felt that I would have to make a large model, and I wanted to keep my project on the smaller end. I still knew that I wanted to hang whatever I made outside on a tree, but I did not want it to be too conspicuous, in order to see if people would still notice it. When the boat idea did not work out, my friend suggested I make a marionette. I thought the idea of creating a marionette out of cans sounded pretty interesting. I already knew that no matter what I ended up creating out of cans, I was going to include some kind of figure because the idea of using cans to form a figure seemed like a challenge, and I wanted to see what I would be able to come up with. Therefore, I took my friend's idea and modified it a bit. I wanted to use full cans as well as cut up can sheets, so I used full cans as the theater walls, can sheets as the floor, can tops as the "roof," twisted can strips as the body of the puppet, and the can bottom as the head. Everything was connected by wires. The theater walls are all connected together. Although it looks simple, this process actually took a fairly long time. I first connected the rows. Each row is connected by one wire, which I poked through the sides of the cans, and I tightly wound the ends of the wires around the pop-tops. I then stacked the rows of cans and used one long strand of wire to connect each of the columns, using a similar method as the one I used to construct the rows. To make the "roof" of the theater, I cut out the tops of several cans and wound several strands of wire around the pop-tops to connect them all and hold them in place. The puppet itself is made out of twisted can sheet strips, and three strands of wire hold it together. Two wires go through the arms, through the body, and through the legs. Then another wire goes up through the body, through a hole I made at the bottom of the head using an awl, then through a hole I made at the top of the head, and finally up to the roof where I wound the end around one of the pop-tops, allowing the puppet to hang.

Once I completed the project, I hung it up on a tree right in my quad. It seemed like a good location because so many people pass through my quad on a daily basis, so I thought I would be able to observe a good number of reactions to my project. I received a few looks as I hung up my project, and one person even asked what I was doing. After that, however, I did not witness any other reactions to my puppet theater creation, since I had to go to class right after displaying it. One of my friends did tell me that she saw a prospective student and her mother looking at my project and poking around it. They apparently seemed intrigued by the model. According to someone in class today (I'm sorry, I don't know your name), during the football game on Saturday, a little girl really took to my project, so much that her mother had to pull her away from it. It was quite flattering to hear these responses to my project, for I had not anticipated any real reactions at all, at least nothing more than a few glances. Sadly, I did not get to witness any responses to my project because by the time I returned to check on it, it was gone. It turns out that someone tore it down (probably during tailgate), so my friend brought it inside to return to me. Whoever tore down my project, really destroyed it. The cans were all crushed, the "roof" was no longer intact, the walls had completely fallen apart, and the puppet's head was bent in half. At first, it was kind of upsetting to see that all of the work and hours I spent on this project were destroyed and put to waste within a matter of seconds, but I had not even expected any reaction to it at all, so I was then somewhat glad that someone had felt strong enough feelings about my it to do something with it, even if those feelings were not necessarily positive.

For the soda can project, I decided to make a doorway decoration.  The idea came from those hanging beads that people sometimes put in their doorways.  It was kind of an easy decision when it came to my design.  I knew I wanted something that would hang was made of repeating simple elements.  An intensive trial and error process landed me upon the circles and squares.  I chose those elements because they looked fragile and almost dainty.  I connected the pieces with curled wire, which you cannot see in the pictures.  There ended up being six different strands, and despite how hectic it looks, there is some organization.  The first and the fourth strand are the same, the second and fifth are the same and the third and the sixth are also the same.  I thought that doing the pattern like that would make it look a little bit more organized but I was clearly wrong.  I do like the way it ended up looking though.  It is simple yet fun. 

 I hung my project in the common room door in my dorm (Giles).  I was not satisfied with the amount of attention, or lack thereof, it got from people passing by.  Most ignored or just scooted around it.  There were a few people who were annoyed with the inconvenience of taking three steps to the side and gave a “pfft.”  When one girl was walking past it got stuck in her hair.  She gave a slight giggle and then moved it to the side of the doorway rather than in the middle where I had put it.  My friends were impressed with it, though. Two of them even asked if they could have it. 

  Working with the cans was a difficult task at first but it became easier after a while.  Figuring out how to work with the cut cans without cutting myself was a big deal.  My batman band-aids got a good work out throughout the past month.  It was surprising to me how easy the cans were to shape after you broke through them.  I don’t know that I would chose to use soda cans as a material in another project but it was interesting to get to work with such an off the wall object.  

Soda Can Skirt

Ever see Bravo's Project Runway? Where they send designers into grocery stores and they have do design an outfit out of the raw materials in the store? I found that this was my perfect opportunity to have fun with an ordinary everyday material and make it into art. 

I had originally thought I was going to do a tree branch with leaves. After starting to play with the cans and thinking about where I wanted to put the branch on campus, I decided I wanted to do something that would catch more people's attention. What captures people's attention? Clothes! 

After deciding on making a skirt, I needed to figure out how to cut the cans. The middle section of the can made the most sense because I was able to flatten and cut the can into square pieces. While cutting up the cans I kept all the pieces of the cans, just incase I wanted to use them later. Once I had pile of square tin pieces cut up I needed to figure out how to attach them together. If I used small enough wire, I could sew the pieces together like fabric and thread. 

The next step was to figure out how it was going to wrap around the body. I used a thick piece of wire and folded a square tin piece around it, then sewed it in place with wire. 

I assembled the entire flat piece/patch work piece before I attached it to the top wire. Once I attached the two piece together, I decided it needed something more. This was when I added the belt. The belt is made from the bottom pieced of the can. They were sewed on the same way as the other pieces. 

The final part of the project was to convince on of my friends to be my model and to fit the skirt to their body. My friend Julia offered to be my model. Lucky for me it turned out that the skirt was pretty flexible in size. I was able to put all the extra can patch work underneath the top piece of the skirt. The skirt turned out to be a wrap skirt. I knew from the beginning that this skirt was not going to be a functional skirt but rather a piece of art or a statement. 

I really enjoyed working with this material because I found that it was quite malleable. At first I thought it was going to be extremely difficult but after cutting up a few cans it turned out to be quite easy. Although assembling the main panel of the skirt took a while, once I got the hang of sewing the piece together it didn't seem to take very long at all. 

Playing with Soda Cans!

I started this project out by simple playing around with a couple cans to get a feel for the material. I quickly discovered that two flat pieces of the can could be put together by folding them over one another and then scoring the overlap with pliers, and thus decided to make that the basis of my project, instead of using wire to hold everything together.

After that, I started experimenting with the different shapes that could be made in this fashion, such as triangles, circles, squares, etc. I was initially planning to make a kind of mobile out of a hodgepodge of these shapes, but after realizing that I could make a star out of five triangles and some wire, I got an impulse to fashion the sculpture to be something like a dream catcher.

I proceeded to weave five triangles together into a star, and then made a large circle to wrap around it. Since the middle of the resulting star-inside-a-circle looked empty, I cut out four triangles and made a star of David (held together by wire) to hang in the middle. I then fashioned the tails of the dream catcher out of circles made in the same fashion as the triangles.
At this point in the project, someone told me that it kinda looked like an animal, so I decided to add ears; thus, the finished project was born.
I decided to hang the project in the duke gardens, because I really liked the way it looks from the trail (see the above picture). I then passed it a good deal while running in an attempt to see if anyone was paying attention to it. Most people didn't even see it, and the people that did didn't really make any comments. When I went back to where I hung it on Monday, it was gone.

FOR THE MAP PROJECT:

When I began this project, I really had no clue what I wanted to do. I initially thought of an artistic representation of a gene map, but that proved to require an immense amount of research, so the idea was abandoned. About this time, I stumbled upon a website about Olympic athletes and gender testing. That got me thinking about the Olympics, and I eventually decided to map out where the modern Olympics have taken place since they started.
The conclusion? Very Eurocentric.

I started the major part by creating a grid, and since I lack the artistic skills to draw a map of the world freehand, I decided to go with making a connect-the-dots representation of it.














The whole connect the dots scheme is demonstrated by the picture of Europe and the United States / Canada above. The method created a very angular feel, and served to emphasize the fact that I used a grid. I then listed were the modern Olympics have been every year since their creation, and connected those cities in order of the year the summer Olympics were held there.
If you look closely (its really hard to see the red in this picture), you can see where the cities are connected. When all is said and done, the red lines form a design that, to me, looks a lot like a plane or glider or something along those lines.

Central Campus Beautification(?) Project

I started off this project with a completely open mind, trying to see what I liked and didn't like about the different properties of the can.  I knew I didn't want to create something with concrete imagery - I wanted it to be appealing to the eye and fairly abstract.

I started to work with the material and was taken by the interior, non-colored, part of the can.  The material reminded me of a Frank Gehry building -

 Walt Disney Opera House, Guggenheim Bilbao, etc... so I took off brainstorming on that path. 

Guggenheim 

Bilbao

 I tried to think of ways I could create larger sheets of aluminum panels with I could then shape, warp, distort to create something on a large scale.  With wire being our only way to connect cans, I couldn't think of a realistic way to do this (although Maya's seemed to have a lot of success sewing her skirt).

I moved on thinking of other ways to use the inside of the can.  I decided I would cut the aluminum into strips and connect them in long straight strips, which would connect what used to be the can's top and bottom.  I worked on this 'deconstructed can' idea for awhile, cutting large amounts of aluminum strips and compiling various tops and bottoms.  

When I started to wire the strips together, I realized the wire didn't want to stay straight (but curled up on itself, got various bends), which was essential to what I had planned.  Rather than meticulously trying to straighten each piece, I decided I would intentionally curve each piece and scratch yet another plan.

I worked through all the strips I had and created a lot of curved wire pieces, strung with aluminum strips, all of various lengths.  I wanted to hang them from rings of higher gauge wire, and in the process of hanging them found I could make multiple sculptures.  Looking out my window on Central Campus, I thought it would look neat if I hung all the sculptures in one place, making sure anyone who was around it would notice.

I made about 8 sculptures and hung them all in the same green space in Central, from various tree limbs, stair wells, and broken lights.  I thought Central was the best choice simply because it is so ugly and neglected, and I figured no one would ever take them down.

You can see 4 scluptures in this picture

You can see 5 sculptures in this picture

A friend, helping me hang one of the pieces.

I tried to capture people's reaction to them, but most people walked by with no reaction at all.  When I asked friends what they thought of it, they thoug

ht it was really cool and I found that most people that got close to it really like to touch the various curls.

My friend Mike looking at the different pieces.

If you are ever on Central feel free to take a look, because I'm guessing Duke's never going to take them down.

Trial and Error: The Two Serpents

For my soda can project, I decided to make two serpents that hang together and place them within a tree on east campus. However, before I made this final choice I went through a huge process of trial and error.

When I first started working on the soda can project, I wanted to create fun interesting shapes and explore what the soda can as a material could do. I cut up multiple soda cans in a variety of ways. After some time, I realized that putting them together in order to become a larger object, and have it contain some kind of meaning and importance on campus to get a reaction from students would be a difficult task. I had no idea how I could connect these cans, and for this project I really wanted to aim for a final piece that contains a lot of symbolic representation and allows fascination and imagination for the public mind.

I decided to discard all of the cans that I had been working on and start on a new project. I began to think of objects that hang, and locations on campus from where to hang something from where it could be seen by students. I instantly thought of hanging something from a tree. Then when thinking of what hangs from trees, the first image that came to mind was a bird house. I started creating a bird house out of cans, and then noticed that weight distribution and the material being soda cans and wires would not allow this project to come out the way that I had wanted and intended it too. Therefore, I began to think, and within thinking my mind drifted to what my plans were for the upcoming week. 

The only thing that was on my mind was how much work I had for my midterms and that fall break was coming up shortly. At this moment, the idea came to my mind to create a palm tree for my project. I instantly thought that I could place a palm tree in the middle of the common room to give hope for the students of my dorm. The palm tree symbolizes hope in a way that we all have hard weeks with midterms, but vacation is near. I wanted it to help relax people in a time of stress. However, once I got started on the project I realized that the wire was not strong enough to support the cans (for the branches and leaves at the top). I made the trunk and all of the branches and while attaching them at the top all they did was flop close to the trunk or not attach at all. At this moment I had no idea what to do for my project anymore. Then finally, I was sitting in my room and a random piece of wire was on the ground in a coil. It was right then were I got the idea and inspiration for my project. A snake. 

I pulled more wire out and started wrapping it into bigger coils and lengthening it. I originally started putting the cans on the wire just as they were but I noticed that it did not give the snake any body and it didn't really look good. Then, I got the idea to smash the cans so that they became flat. This worked out perfectly. At first I only made one snake. I chose it to be black because when I thought of snakes and the location and symbolization on campus I instantly thought of the bible and the serpent. If the snake was going to symbolize the serpent and the meaning of temptation I figured black would be the best choice of color. 

After the first class back from vacation, I was inspired to then create a second serpent. I decided this not only to make my project more dramatic and more noticeable, but also to create a balance. This is why I chose the color red. The color red I thought was the opposite, or the counter-balance to black. This would create the meaning of the ancient chinese symbolization of ying and yang, two opposites that balance each other out. I knew that making the black serpent temptation was almost making to harsh a judgement on the students, especially the incoming freshmen. I was judging the fact that every new freshman gives into the new temptations of college. Therefore, I wanted to create the opposing force to mean that there is balance on campus and that everything has two sides. 

In conclusion, after multiple attempts at the project I created two serpents. One black to represent temptation, and one red to balance it. I hung it on a tree on east campus which symbolizes a tree of knowledge and essentially what can come from that. 

Into the Wild

My sculpture is both decorative and natural. It depicts a portion of a vine and it takes a closer look to realize the blue objects are flowers and that there are butterflies and dragonflies in the midst of them. I initially started out with making the strange blue flowers and then experimented with the material (getting a few scratches on the way) and made the different bugs and incorporated to them to create a natural image.  It would have fit in well in an area outside but I decided against this because I felt that it might get damaged and break very easily.

I decided to hang it up in my common room at South Gate which was an easy place as I could observe people’s reaction to it and I also felt I would get more honest opinions from people I was familiar with. As there were limited places to hang it up, I had to change the structure of my sculpture. I made all the objects face a certain way, so the viewer could observe the different colors. I hung it up on the door so that it was the first thing people noticed when they entered the common room. I got an overall positive reaction.

Some of the comments I received were,

‘Wild’

‘The colors are great and it’s so creative’

‘The red butterfly is the best part’

‘The color adds a lot to the shape and it all works really well as a whole’

‘Very eye-catching and creative’

‘The aqua soda cans provide a beautiful and serene aura to the piece and this piece really adds a whole new dimension to everyday objects.’

‘It looks like those weird flowers from Sponge bob’

‘I hope you got your tetanus shot!’ 

Can you understand it?

Pictured on the left is my can project. As can be seen, I tried to put an organic feel into this assignment. After playing with the cans and getting an initial impression of this unconventional medium, I formulated a basic idea of what I wanted to create. Unlike the last assignment, I actually managed to follow through with this prototype brainstorm. So, like it was stated in class, the "mechanical-versus-nature" juxtaposition generates a very strong response from viewers. I thought the cans had a very cool industrial, metallic quality to them; and so I attempted to create a mobile with very natural elements.

Here is one portion of my mobile. Initially, I had hoped to create an origami crane. However, the aluminum was a lot harder to work with than I had originally thought -- and so I had to amend my original plan. By fooling around, I managed to create a bird from multiple cans (plus wire) and attached the individual parts with thin wire.

When making these flowers, I used a different method. For the one on the bottom, I made a series of concentric circles and cut slits to piece them together. Then, after several cuts on my hand etc., I managed to create a spherical "blossom". For the flower on the top, I cut sheets of aluminum into strips and tied them together at the center with wire. I let them dangle to balance out the weight on the mobile.

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As can be seen from pic two, the setting I chose to hang my sculpture was the railroad bridge which crosses over Campus Drive running from East to West. Pictures three and four are taken from the bridge after I walked up to find an appropriate place to hang the mobile. I chose the bridge because I wanted my piece to be displayed in an industrial surrounding. Upon closer inspection, I found a part of the wall where I wanted to hang my mobile around. There is graffiti text which states "Jesus Lives" and I wanted my mobile to hang over the portion that stated "Lives", because I thought it would make the viewer question: is the image alive? or what does it mean to be "alive"? Anyways, all-in-all, this area seemed appropriate.

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The process of hanging the mobile proved to be a little more difficult (Primarily: a lack of proper lighting and a severe phobia of heights to deal with). However, I managed to string the mobile with thin wire and tie it to the bridge hanging directly over the road. The few late night drivers which passed by were, to put it nicely, intrigued by the mysteriously lowered art piece. One man actually got out of his car to inquire about the mobile and what I was doing with it (I told him I was "fishing" to raised eyebrows; and then I gave an actual explanation).



These are two pictures taken with my camera phone. Click on them to enlarge, if you will. They show, in the relative detail of 3.2 megapixels, precisely how I managed to suspend my mobile over Campus Drive.

This is a picture taken from the bridge directly looking down upon my mobile. Huge sense of vertigo would be an understatement.



And so, pictured on the left, is the finished hanging. The mobile is suspended over the spraypainted "lives" from the bridge -- high above the heads of inter-campus travelling. More pictures of the project, upon completion, follow.

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Here is the finished mobile, hanging from the bridge from different viewpoints. Pictures one and two are from the road beneath looking upwards; and pictures three and four are from the bridge looking below at the suspended mobile strung with wire.

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A brief personal reflection on the project: It was definitely my first time ever creating a 3D sculpture. I had to take into consideration many physical aspects (i.e. weight distribution, perception from varying angles, etc.) and it was, most assurably, a long learning process. The aluminum proved to be relatively easy to handle, but I did suffer from a few cuts and scrapes. I took into consideration the use of color for this mobile. Hence, diet coke caffeine-free gold and A&W brown along with coke red, sierra mist green, and diet coke silver. When all's said and done, I am satisfied with the end product and I believe I tried my best to create a more "organic" mobile. I like the setting chosen, because I believe it provides an interesting contrast. The text on a concrete, industrial background ("LIVES") becomes a fascinating basis of comparison.

I sat on the bridge to record a few reactions. I saw many questioning stares, and several cars slowed down with drivers' faces peering from their windshields. A few of my dorm mates thought it was "cool", "sweet", blah blah. One man on the housekeeping staff shouted up to me that the mobile was "real neat". As far as I know, as of now, it still has not been taken down. This could be due to the fact that it's such a hassle to cut it from the bridge. It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts...

Interpretation

I liked this project because it was a material I'm sure everyone was new to working with, soda cans.  The soda cans were interesting not only because they were metal, but because they had a shape of their own already, and certain properties that allowed or inhibited the design.  Actually, because the cans were so hard to work with at points, they actually ended up changing my design.

I originally had the idea of making something somehow involved with nature.  I was not sure if I was going to exactly replicate nature or not, but in my first idea, a beehive, I was going to make the shape of the bee hive and hang it suggestively in a tree.  This did not work out.  I decided to play with the cans and see what I could make, and ended up with these spiky bundles made from the tops of the cans. 

 I also liked stringing together the little pieces of the cans 

to make chains, which I hung from the bottoms of the spiked balls.  Once I hung this in the tree, it looked great, but also left its meaning up to the viewer. One could say they look like pinecones since I hung them in a pine tree.   I also added more elements to the set to make it seem like a collection of sculpture incorporated into nature by making little green metal strips bound into a bundle then spread out to look like pine needles.  These are visible in several of the pictures.

Another thing I liked about hanging the metal sculpture in a natural tree was the contrast created by the two. I am sure when people look into trees, they do not expect to see metal, and not only does this grab the viewers attention, but makes them wonder what this sculp

ture implies or resembles by being incorporated with nature.

I was originally planning on hanging the sculpture in a tree on West Campus, around the Bryan Center.  But when I tried to ask administrators if I could borrow a ladder to hang something, when they found they told me I couldn't hang sculpture, and when I said I had to do it anyway for a class, they said they would just take it down.  So this was an interesting interaction with public art and Duke, and implied that the trees and the grounds were more important than the expression of art on campus.  

So I went to the Duke Gardens instead. This was better actually because it offered better viewing space and better variety of trees.  At the gardens, I was not sure if hanging my sculpture was allowed, but I figured I would hang it anyway and let them take it down.  When I was hanging it, some people looked on with passive interest, while some people looked confused or looked at me strangely.  I thought this was interesting, but because my sculpture was abstract, I wasn't too surprised.  Hanging the piece was actually easy with just wire, and the sculpture is still up in the gardens for as long as they will allow it to be there, and I was happy to give people something to look at and interpret in the Gardens.

This is a picture of the sculpture as a whole: