Object of Personal Significance

0bject of personal significance;

i guess, an object of personal significance to me is my boat. this has many links to my life and the elements that have shaped me as a person.
from a very early age I have been around boats and the ocean. a certain weariness and a converse sense of empowerment surrounds ‘boats’ in my life.
having my own boat is a source of pride and worry; pride from the fact that i fix and rehabilitate the impressive structure, have guided her safely through storms and can explore reaches of this earth otherwise unavailable. pride also from following my male elders footsteps. worry, from the responsibility i feel for the boat and the guests i take out.
i see my boat as an extension of myself. i see it as a manifestation of my personal strength and ability to seek and realize a dream.

boat revisited

i am a solid, fibrous shell. Hollow. i am a mix of rounded and square shapes.
i displace matter to occupy space and my position can be manipulated by external physical forces.
i have a thin shaft protruding perpendicularly to my main structure and can hold many items inside.

below are a few simple mock ups i did using cue from above;

i found it very hard to detach myself from my prior knowledge and prejudice towards this item. this shows up the old idea that an artists vision can be blurred easily and needs to be constantly evaluated to keep on the best path.

VERB CAPTURE & Interview With a Sticky Laptop

VERB CAPTURE




Interview With a Sticky Laptop.

Why are you valued?

I give the ability to interact with the digital realm. I make playing internet games, access to facebook and video sharing possible. I help provide info and enjoyment.

Why not a different type of computer?
Laptop is small enough to carry around. I am a small but powerful.

How much are you worth?
I have an arbitrary monetary value of a couple of thousand dollars but am valued differently by different people in different contexts.
I have more value for the owner as I store precious pic’s, vid’s and work for them.

Why are your keys sticky?
I don’t wanna talk about it.

What do you need to function?
As a computer – I need a power source and input for purpose. ….As an object I merely need space to occupy.

Do you have a soul?
Does not compute????

Would you like to go somewhere after this?
I DON’T CARE!!! I have no preference of my own.

Why don’t you care?
I am a machine, I am passive. There to be used.

What are you afraid of?
Not being used. Being obsolete. Being smashed.

Do you have a religion or fundamental principle you live by?
Binary. Input. My programming is my ‘religion’.

What do you like about yourself?
My sleek, ergonomic cowling and my small but powerful harddisk is what is suspect I would say if personified. But I truly don’t care!!!

What don’t you like about yourself?
I truly don’t care!!!

If you were a person, what would you look like?
I suppose I’d look like the rest of you. Fleshy, hairy, changing.

What would you like to look like?
No preference. Human adverts often tell me if I was to be personified I’d want to look trim, muscley, tanned and sexually appealing to other humans.

What do you mean I don’t care?
Your behavioural nature suggests you have no preference. You do nothing to assert yourself. From what I can see you have no perceivable manifestation of your own will.

But don't I achieve your will for you?

peut la fleur

while i was researching sonic devices and instruments for this project i noticed two things that really motivated my direction.

the main thing i noticed was the amount of trash we have lying around the 'clean, green' AUT campus. the second dawning realisation was that most of these items (although sometimes a bit sticky) were laden with sonic and aesthetic potential.

as such, i decided to use and recycle some of the trash and reinvent it in a way that explores intrinsic potential and presents items in a new way. ....


exploring the trash

i tested paper, food wrappers, plastic cartons, bottles and cans that i found lying around in the nature of trash.

i filled glass bottles with various amounts of liquids and activated air vibrations inside the bottle by holding a motorised fan over the mouth piece. this created interesting droning notes but i felt like it was fairly familiar teritory so i decided to carry on exploring my pile of rubbish until something new struck me. ...

while i was experimenting with a coke can and fan i realised that there was a lot i could do with this often overlooked medium. the can itself acts as a reverb chamber with a convenient sound hole at the top. also, when i put water inside the can and struck it near or below the water line it produced a sonaris, vibrating metalic sound that i'd never really heard before. amazed i paced the house with my can, holding it by the tab for less muting of the sound and greater sound wobble.

i believe the sound i found is produced when vibrations inside the can are activated then modulated by the changing shape and surface area of the moving water inside the can. curiously, soft drink doesn't have quite the same effect. i suspect the small carbonated air bubbles must soak up the sound waves in stead of reflecting them like water does.

construction

i started by heating some thin steel rods with an oxy/acetylene torch then flattening the ends with a hammer and anvil. these were to suspend the can/flowers while providing enough spring to allow maximum vibration and wobble;

i used sheet steel to hold the can tabs and flattened ends of the steel rods together. small nuts and bolts are the fasteners which means cans can be replaced as required.

i cut and curved the fateners to resemble the sructure of the flower and to ensure sound holes are not too greatly obstructed.

i twisted wire around the base to give it strength and epoxied it all together. this meant i was able to twist each stem from side to side inside the epoxy and wire mold and could even pull a stem out if i feel the need.

the base itself is made, once again, from steel. it is a good, heavy chunk which i turned into a more elegant shape on the lathe. although i thought i'd get away with a small, heavy foot to hold it upright, when i started 'playing' the device i realised it was too unstable. this was a worry for me as i didn't want to add a stand that would take visual emphasis from the can/flowers.

i taped up uneven coloured portions of the cans then sprayed the device with black spray paint. i did this to accentuate the idea of cans as flowers and, by extension, a naturalish reincarnation for these pieces of reformed trash.

also, as i want my device to function as a sculptural feature too i thought it was a good aesthetic decision to use this method to draw the viewers' eye to the 'flowers' before the rest of the structure.

i added a semi circular piece of sheet metal which i thought was complimentary to the design and would be versatile in many situations. e.g. in the garden, against a wall, bolted underneath a gutter on an industrial building...

performance

one issue i had when performing was that my device makes fairly delicate sounds so it can be hard to hear. i think this creates an intimate connection between the device and its player(s) but had to mic it up so i could play with my conspirators. contact mics on the cans dulled the sound produced so i used a directional mic on a boom and an amp to boost my signal.

reflection, conceptual analysis and conclusion

i feel my Can Flower is a unique way to present and reuse the discarded cans littered around our campus. it has instrumental value as a percussive, wobbling device utilising the potential that soft drink cans have as a reverb chamber and membrane or striking surface.

i filled the cans with different liquids (e.g. oil, water, soda) and various materials, such as guitar strings and beads, to further explore the sonic potential of the device. this was a natural step and helped me refine the device and make it more versatile to play. this, also, is an example of me letting my materials inform and shape my direction.

the Can Flower is also a movable, interactive sonic instillation. it addresses the impact human waste has on the our landscape. 'trashed' cans are seen at the base, ready to be reabsorbed by the landscape.

i would like to see how people approach it in a public space and will be keen to use this method again to develop a much larger version. next time i would use a thinner, more flexible material for the storks to ensure the liquid is able to wobble more and produce as much of the sonaris sound as one can by holding the can by its tab.

i would like to thank phil dadson for his patience and help, my class for constant feedback and support, and my performance partners max and nelish.

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