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.