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.

Sketch

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

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

 

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

Final head of tool

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.

 

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

A “mystic” table lamp. Multiple dimensional lamp.

 

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

Beautiful measuring tool

 

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

 

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.

Another interesting name

 

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

+ listening to this:

 

 

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.

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

from Klausstille.com

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.

 

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

Sketch

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

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

The mask is being created with the clay

Mask without nails

Applying nails to the mask

Finally

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.

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

 

 

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

 

 

A hat of many dimensions

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

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

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.

My workspace mid-process

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

 

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.

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.