Category: 7×7

7×7 #5 PROTOTYPE CREATION

The final product will be a long stick onto which there is attached a very dark piece of glass which will be used both as a mirror and a tool for looking straight into the sun. There is also attached a wheel with cutouts of 8 different postures. This wheel can be spun.

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Sketch

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I lasercut the wheel in black museum board – thick paper/cardboard.

The glass I found in Home Depot. It is a glass for welding.

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I had the clamp in my house. All the pieces are put together using metal wire.

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Final head of tool

7×7 #5 SECONDARY BRAINSTORM – RESEARCH TRIP TO HOME DEPOT

I am always fascinated by tools, and especially tools with an extremely specific purpose. To get ideas for how to make my device, I went to Home Depot to look at tools.

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Spikes to avoid your table legs make marks in your carpet. Possibly useful.

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A “mystic” table lamp. Multiple dimensional lamp.

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Mixing materials: a soft sponge on another soft although harder material.

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Beautiful measuring tool

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Many tools in Home Depot have futuristic looks: here: mixing the soft-looking ergonomic plastic handle with a killing tool, a hard metal cutter.

 

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Also: very interesting and odd names for tools. This tool clearly has an extremely specific use that is only interesting to a certain group of people.

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Another interesting name

 

There were many more interesting tools, but I had found enough that I could create my device.

+ listening to this:

https://youtu.be/SmFQP-Oe-PQ

 

 

7×7 #5 INITIAL BRAINSTORM

Larynx or voice box. Practicing speaking. Walking upright – upright posture.

Posture

Highly developed metaphors – highly developed level of abstraction in the future. No need for physicality— no need for talking perhaps?

PLUS remember to avoid sci-fi idea of the future. Important to keep it in the speculative realm, not become tech geeky or steampunk fantastical.

Avoid sci-fi

Avoid cute

Should it be a drink? No.

It should be measurements. Or a tool for measuring (have not done that yet)

Measuring: days, time, hours, distance, emotional level

Moon watcher. Sun watcher. Sun clock.

Sun_clock_in_Valka

No need to communicate (because there is no one to communicate with)

No need to talk about emotions. Rather measure them, and then action.

Measuring body posture as a physical expression of emotional state

munari1

from Klausstille.com

Aby_Warburg

Aby Warburg

A way to connect astrology and psychology

Meaning: basically a way to connect the physicality of the stars and the beliefs connected to that to how our emotional states are. As astrology has always done. But also connecting this to the notion of bodies in a space which has a significance both culturally and naturally connected to body postures.

The device should somehow connect this into a meaningful pseudo-scientific (by our standards) measuring device.

Of course connected to horoscopes. The immediate meaninglessness of horoscopes, yet we believe in them. And still: they are often right. Like the oracle. Why shouldn’t the positions of the planets have influence? Gravity, sunstorms, all these things: the gravity of the moon moves the entire body of water in our oceans – why wouldn’t something move something in us as well?

The idea is that in the future we have a much larger connection to the planetary system on a much less divided pseudo-scientific way as we have today.

 

7×7 #4 FINAL PRODUCT: “A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL PROSTHETIC MASK”

This tool is intended to be used by the last human on Earth. The tool should be used as a prosthetic mask.

The last human will wear the prosthetic mask at all times. It is a necessary artificial addition to the last human’s face.

The prosthesis is a three-dimensional rendering of a four-dimensional object. The four-dimensional object is the last human’s face in four dimensions. The prosthesis is extrapolating the three-dimensional face of the last human, and thereby creating a projected version of the four-dimensional face.

Although the last human perceives primarily in three dimensions (as all humans before also have), the last human is in dire need of connection to the fourth dimension. This is not metaphysical or spiritual in any way: it is not implicating time travel, portals or multiverses. The last human is not interested in speculative sci-fi dreams. It is a strictly geometrical and physical description of the fourth dimension.

All humans understand the difference between one, two and three dimensions, easily exemplified as the difference between the line, the square and the cube. This is necessary knowledge for all humans before the last human. In a similar manner, it is imperative for the last human to be in touch with, at a very basic level, the difference between the third and the fourth dimension. It is a fundamental necessity in order to be able to grasp the reality of the landscape in which the last human dwells.

(from time to time, the last human feels almost two-dimensional; ever since the last skyscraper had crumbled into dust and the tall trees had fallen, what was remaining of the Earth had become very flat)

 

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The prosthesis seen from front

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The prosthesis seen from the side

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The prosthesis as worn by the last human.

7×7 #4 PROTOTYPE CREATION

So the final product is a mask made out of clay, metal wire and nails.

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Sketch

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First I created a very basic structure for the mask in the metal wire.

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Secondly, I made a flat piece of clay to use on the metal and thereby creating the face mask

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The mask is being created with the clay

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Mask without nails

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Applying nails to the mask

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Finally

7×7 #4 SECONDARY BRAINSTORM

More thoughts:

Prosthesis. Handicaps. Very human.

Limits and limitations.

A prosthetic mask — to somehow be involved in multiple/other dimensions. It could be a mask which transfers the 3 dimensionality of the last human into more dimensions. (or it could reduce dimensions, for instance glasses that makes the 3dimensionality into 2D.

So it should be:
A prosthetic mask which allows the last human to transfer its face into four dimensions.

This is important for the last human because the last human has an urge to connect with other dimensions, or be mindful of other dimensions.

The last human feels bound by the 3 dimensions on Earth (the last human actually feels 2-dimensional now that the skyscrapers are all gone)

This device is to escape 3-dimensionality. It is a prosthetic device because it is an artificial addition to the last human’s face.

A prosthesis mask

An artificial face for the last human.

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Stratagrids: “Measuring infinity” from Grain (Grain Vapor Ray – Textures of the Anthropocene, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt + Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013)

 

 

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Stratagrids: “Measuring infinity” from Grain (Grain Vapor Ray – Textures of the Anthropocene, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt + Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013)

 

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A hat of many dimensions

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Some research + writing

“In geometry, the tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of 6 square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of 8 cubical cells.” Wikipedia.

Schlegel_wireframe_8-cell

Tesseract image from wikipedia

What I will create is a face mask in a similar way that you create a tesseract from a cube. In an abstract way.

 

7×7 #4 INITIAL BRAINSTORM

What is human?

Things that are specifically human/cultural:

Prosthesis are a very human device. It is even on the edge of being cyborg. It blurs the line between the nature in the human and the cultural in the human. This is what is interesting. Glasses, canes, all these things are prosthetic in nature. These are devices that no other animal than a human would need (or maybe they would, but they can not have them)

Create a tool which is a prosthesis with a certain meaning. It should not be a prosthesis with only the meaning of making the human walk/sit down/have better vision etc. It should have a more specific purpose.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

 

This image is confusing: the dog is holding a rubber-crocodile in miniscule size in its mouth, while the hind legs are not legs but wheels.

 

7×7 #3 FINAL PRODUCT: “A PRISON TENT”

This tool is intended to be used by the last human on Earth. The tool should be used as a prison for sleeping.

The prison is made of plastic. Onto the plastic there is painted a large star in bright green color. This is for camouflage. The prison blends surprisingly well with the bare, deserted landscape that surrounds it.

There is attached a bell to each of the prison’s four corners. This is a security measure: if the prisoner moves, the bells will ring and thereby alarm the guard.
The last human is both the prisoner and the guard in this prison.

The last human feels great comfort in upholding some of humankind’s most important institutions, including the prison. Therefore, a prison in the form of a tent is the best place for the last human to rest.

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The prison tent can be inhabited by 1 person (prisoner and guard)

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The prison is marked with a clear green star.

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Onto each corner of the prison there is attached a bell. This is to notify the guard if the prisoner is moving or trying to escape.

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The prison is painted in such a way that it blends surprisingly well with the surroundings.

7×7 #3 PROTOTYPE CREATION

The final product will be a tent-fabric with an icon (star) with bells attached to the corner.

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Different materials I use in the final product: plastic sheet, clamps, bells

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The plastic sheet laid out in my work space. A few drips of paint has been put onto it already.

The paint is made of spirulina mixed with water, glue and concrete.

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My workspace mid-process

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The clamp is holding the bell and attached to each corner of the plastic sheet.

 

7×7 #3 SECONDARY BRAINSTORM

A tent, but should relate more to the cultural values/the “human” values…

Everybody needs shelter. That is not specifically human enough.

Sofia suggests: A rattling device, to keep your language. To remind you of a voice.

A device to keep language. A device that will remind you of language. Language is necessary for thoughts. Language is necessary.

Is sanity necessary if you’re the last person on Earth? Probably not.

A combination of a shelter and a device that is a system.

A system device.

What is human? Make a system. Make an abstract system.

Creating institutions.

Perform rituals. Make traditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQjprMppQ_8

We are dealing with:

The last human on Earth.

The last human on Earth is basically in a very difficult place; It is difficult to be placed in a world where the subject/object distinction that we have made through centuries, basically is meaningless (because there are no other humans, no other objects or subjects, only whatever, only things, only the existing) Is the last human on earth even human? This is what I’m trying to figure out.

The last human on earth is by definition human. This is how I will solve this.

The last human on a skateboard

 

The last human will sleep in a PRISON

That is a very human system

It will remind the last human of a system. It will comfort the last human in the stability of the system.