Project#2- Body Transformation- Body Extension

Project Intro

We are asked to be focusing on the voluminosity of the forms, the interaction between the body, its extension, and the surrounding. How it changes the function of the body? How it changes our perception of our bodies? How it changes the perception of the viewers? Physically, emotionally, politically, socially, etc. Explore the idea of extending a part or few parts of your body into space to be able to have a function you have always wanted to have.

Phase One

-Research

-Research Document (history)

Research about wearable body extension-2crump8

-Mindmap

-Moodboard

-Sketches

-Design Proposal

For this project, I mainly investigated how senses can be made into body extensions according to history. Throughout the whole history of designing body extension, designers mainly focus on detecting signals right upon or a little beneath the surface of a body, for my design, however, I would like to pop body extension out of the surface. Along with my research, I investigated a famous sci-fi artist named Lucy McRae and her art pieces really inspired me. I decided to do a whole-body installation. I started with animal organizations that human-being do not have—wings, scale, turtle, with that thought in mind, I kept working on the concept wings and connect it to vibration—hearing as a sense, and scale and shell to armor then to glasses—seeing as a sense. These are all body extension based on senses. I also discovered if I use natural dying, the fabric will smell the same as vegetations you blend in—smelling as a sense. That can be an effective way to decorate the whole piece or make some connection between the main parts. I ultimately finalized three rough models: half-evil and half-angel, lensman, and the grandmaster at arms as shown in the sketches above.

Phase Two

-Mock-ups

Mock-up one(paper wing)

For this mock-up, I experimented with Bristol paper and muslin as the fabric. I found the wire joint is not stable enough for several-time rotations while the Bristol is not hard enough to hold the fabric, for this mock-up I have to use glue.

Learning from the mock-up, I decided to make my actual structure using wood sticks which is hard enough to hold the fabric while using screws or metal pipe to make the rotation joints so that it will not get loose easily after several rotations.

Mock-up two(color blind test)

I made these color test to reach my goal of social responsibility. I have a close friend back in my high school who is color-blinded. When I watch he TED talk presented by Neil Harbisson, I associatively thought of my friend, very alike Harbisson, he is also a totally color-blinded. He cannot identify colors and everything in front of him is automatically added with a mono filter. I want to use that characteristics of color-blinded patient to make art. After a long period of thinking, I decided to make an eye shape under a mono filter but a pair of wings with words written on it for people who can identify colors.

Mock-up three(the lens structure of main body)

According to my sketches, I made a Bristol paper pentagon (should be octagon and I was a little bit lazy) structure to experiment the viability of len-structure as a backpack. The paper pentagon works and the the len-shape can be folded inward and outward to create a sense of waving and movement.

After that, I tried arcrylic board to make the same folding and the effect turns out to be excellent. Given the arcrylic board is transparent, the inner structure can be completely seen just like reflection, echoing my idea of constructing an eye. Therefore, I determined the final material of the backpack structure to be arcrylic board.

Mock-up four(wings material trial)

I tried with Bristol paper first as I said and cut them into the real feature shape. However, the thickness of Bristol paper is not enough to hold the shape meaning while the wings got unfolded, the Bristol paper can stick to each other. When I tried with cardboard, the texture of the surfaces of cardboard pieces smoothly solved the problem. Since cardboards are hard to cut in curved shape, besides, inspired by the X-men movie, I decided to make a angular shape of wings to enhance the sense of acuteness from the “features” to show the Sci-fi ness, then to show the advancement of body, echoing the theme “body extension”.

Phase Three

Central Theme of the project

I finalized 3 ideas from the sketches, including folding ability, lens-like turtle shell, and bird’s and bat’s wings that people do not have:

Incidence happens at this point. A friend of mine back in high school is color-blinded and I have just got the information from our mutual friend while playing League of Legends. I started to meditate for a while, asking myself: what if I were color blind? What my world will be without the ability to identify green or red? I discovered and related this to the discussion Aviva and I made weeks ago about the purpose of design. We discussed the trend of fashion design and social responsibility. For social responsibility, I was inspired by this idea since I persist on a opinion that people share the equal rights of beholding beauties. I want to create something that normal people will not easily detected while the colorblind can see it crystal clear. That explained why I conducted the mock-up two. The difference between normal people and color blind is eyes, thus, I want to make an “eye” for the colorblind. I will use the main body of the backpack to illustrate an eye ball while using two wings to be the white part of an eye. I decided to use light, shiny color to do both wings so that it can shift people’s focus from associatively thinking it to be an eye. I will also make the backpack “climb” onto the user so that the structure connecting the user to the backpack can be seen as eyelash.

First

I started the final project making with the frame of the backpack. I decided to cut the wood sticks first. I came up with an idea of making the frame ( the eye) into a octagon shape which reminds people of jewelry or something shining—the eye. Given that the frame should be in octagon shape, I have to cut the wood sticks and make them form a 135 degree angle at the intersection. Since 135 equals to 90 plus 45 and most of the wood sticks’ edges are perpendicular, I decided to cut the wood sticks into one-side-45 while the other remains 90.

After cutting the wood sticks, the problem is to connect them. I decided to use metal wire as a mechanical connector for its holding ability. I twine the metal wire back and forth between two wood sticks so that it can tightly hold each other.

To finalize the wood sticks step, I applied sanding papers. As I investigated on google, the sanding effect can be maximized by using sanding paper from lower number (thicker particles) to higher number (smaller particles). I, according to the order, applied 100, 150, then 220 sanding papers. After doing that, the surface of the wood sticks are totally smooth.

Second

After making the wood-sticks backpack structure, I decided to make joints to connect them. As I mentioned in mock-up one, I finally chose the aluminum sheets to roll into aluminum stick, and with the help of a driller, I managed to make the joints both rotatable and stable.

I also faced setbacks: the wood sticks went broken, the nut got loose, the octagon got “dismembered” and so on. After great devotion, I ultimately managed to assemble the main structure as shown in the middle.

Third

After all that, I started to make the acrylic cap of the backpack. To make that, I have to make sure the acrylic board octagon have some rhythms. I decided to make it double layered and the inner layer should pop out to show movement. To reach that effect, I have to calculate the angle according to the lengths of upper side and bottom side etc. To connect,  I applied metal wire to connect the transparent structure while metal circle to connect the black background.

To make it transparent, I can reach the effect of colorless and can collect light reflection just like the real eye as a pun: an additional sensing organ as body extension and an eye for color blind people to behold the beauty of color. To make the background black, I can emphasize the contrast between the background and the high lights made by reflection and the jewelry I added using metal circles to work as a pupil—to make it look more like an eye.

Forth

Finally I started to make two wings—one of them to be bat’s (devil’s) and one of them to be bird’s (angle’s). To make the contrast from two wings, I want to address that these two are not only the only two wings in the nature, but also two opposite representation of evilness and kindness. To walk back and forth in these two contrasted concepts, that is human’s greed. Since the whole structure is about body extension and according to my mindmap where I thought of technology advancement, I thought with advancement here comes acquirement, and subsequently here comes profits and greediness which can make an angle into a devil. Back and forth between these two is actually choosing side in the history.

I used cardboard as feather in the bird’s wing as mentioned in the mock-up four and metal rings as connector to make sure it can move freely but still on the track and I also use plotter to print out paper and staple them onto the feather for color which can mislead the normal people.

Why I chose these colors? I quantified them on my iPad to make sure the color have the same grayness so that when you guys take photos with mono filter like the color blind sees, it appears the same!

For another wings, I picked the pink spandex as fabrics. I also investigate what kind of materials can fit my wood sticks’s rotation. Since when the wood sticks set are folded, the distance between ends are enlarged so I have to choose a elastic material. After a while of investigation on Google, I found the answer. To attach it to the wood sticks, I also applied metal rings since I can adjust the tightness exerted by the ring on the fabric to make wrinkles, making it look more like a bat’s wing.

Final Product Pictures

Orthographic Projection

Styling Pictures

Video

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-Written Reflection-

This project really challenged my imagination and crafting skills. I really enjoyed playing with metal wires and wood sticks. Besides, I also bravely jumped out of my comfort zone to try to do something new. I tried cardboard and acrylic board to do large-area parts for  wings and the turtle shell.

Firstly, I really harvested quite a few knowledge about mechanical connectors. At first I wanted to connect two wood sticks with screws and nuts. However, when I screwed the two, they lost their moving ability, which is against my purpose of constructing a foldable shell. After a struggling period of thinking, an idea hit me when I was playing with aluminum sheets that were prepared for my studio class project. Why don’t I roll the sheet into aluminum sticks and fold them at two ends? The thickness of the aluminum sticks can be determined by the layers I roll to fit the diameter of the hole I drilled. After folding them at two ends, the new mechanical connector is created which can move fluently and the way it works is just like hinge. Further, with Aviva’s suggestions, I capped the two ends with nuts so that the whole joint looks more professional. Other mechanical connectors I experimented is metal wire acrylic board combo. I intentionally cut the acrylic boards to have larger height for each piece of the octagon with the upper side and the bottom side the same, as a planar octagon should be. Therefore, when I assembled them, I successfully made the octagon to be 3-D with a little pop-out at the center, which guarantees the 3-D ness of an eye and also helps to hang up the jewelry. All above cannot be achieved without metal wires. Metal wires can work better than ropes since they can offer support to acrylic boards while being tightened. 

Second, for its purpose, I will always be really happy with this project. I did what I wanted to do for a friend of mine and for other people like him. I started to find design much more fun and honored with people’s needs exerted on it. When my design really helps people, I felt extremely touched and accomplished. I am not a emotional guy but this project really gives me tons of accomplishment from large workload but mainly its meaning. I really enjoyed this as an experience of helping people, I suppose.

Besides, I learned that I really needs incidence to enlighten me to inspire me, lacking a little bit of independent discovery. Indeed, before my friend’s issue, my mind was a mess about conflicting ideas. Probably I need to work on it to see how my independent ability evolved next time. Even though next one will be a group project, I shall take the lead in offering ideas to challenge my self-creativity.