Prosthetics in the 1980s Lower East Side

Prior to designing a prosthetic for a specific neighborhood and time period, the class was first asked to go to the American Museum of Natural History to observe animals, draw, and get inspiration and ideas for how to extend and change the body.

Our group decided to create a prosthetic for the people of the Lower East Side in the 1980s that will connect people and link them together. This prosthetic would be used for protection from police in riots as it would make them a larger force together than they would be divided. Our inspiration came from Keith Haring, who was a prominent street artist in the LES. We were inspired by his images of cartoon like figures with were connected to each other in different places on the body.

This is one Keith Haring piece that especially inspired our idea for our prosthetics.

My original idea was for a connection apparatus that connect to people by their side. The original designs created by the group, we decided, were too garment-like and not truly prosthetic. We addressed this issue by decided to make our connections more specific to certain body parts and areas of the body.

While my original idea was to connect two people by the arms, I had difficulty differentiating my idea from Sarah Morgan’s idea which was very similar. Because of this I decided to created a device to connect two people at the thighs.

For our mock museum exhibition, our group wanted to recreate the appearance of  the street art filled Lower East Side. We decided upon creating a backdrop covered in spray paint with our imitations of famous tags and designs of Lady Pink, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring, who were all prominent street artists of this area in this era. We also included Keith Haring style figures that were connected in ways that are similar to our prosthetic connections to visually communicate where our influence came from.

my rough sketch of the exhibition idea

our exhibition in it’s completion

my prosthetic entitled Thigh Connection

The group all wore our prosthetics at the same time, making us a “walking wall.”