Not sure what this is quite yet….

…But it was quite painstaking to make. It’s been more about the process than the result so far. When my mind is racing, which happens fairly often, I take comfort in doing repetitive activities. Sometimes, that can be as simple as chewing sunflower seeds or tossing a tennis ball in the air. In this case, it was making a linkage made of straightened paperclips and a rubber band ball. For that reason, it’s incredibly ironic that the piece exudes lifelessness.

I used pliers to make hooks on each link, hooked them together, then cinched the hooks. I originally thought I’d curve it into a treble clef but the linkage nodes have inconsistent degrees of freedom so it kept falling apart. So, I moved on to the next activity, which was making a rubber band ball out of a few hundred rubber bands. Every single rubber band is the standard beige color, and the core is also rubber bands. Then, I stabbed the unhooked ends of the linkage into the rubber band ball.

Perhaps I can continue the “lively lifelessness” theme of this piece by daisy-chaining more time-consuming but bland components to it. Not sure quite what that is yet though. We’ll see!

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6 Comments. Leave new

  • Anfal Abdulrahman
    February 15, 2016 12:38 pm

    the piece opens your imagination do anything. I think you tried to brain wash us to think it looks like a buffalo, hahaha. I like it’s symmetrical, but I wish if you planned for something that is of certain aesthetic or certain looks. you can keep working on it ^^

    nice job

    Reply
  • Ryan Yankowsky
    February 7, 2016 2:08 pm

    I like the idea of letting the art drive itself, letting the sculpture take its own course, Have you considered using flexible links, letting the sculpture rebound and return to a specific shape while capturing the deformation on camera? Let the art live free lol!

    Reply
  • Sreyas Krishnan
    January 31, 2016 8:09 am

    This is a really cool idea. I could use cardboard as the base!

    Reply
  • Rachel Grosskrueger
    January 30, 2016 12:48 pm

    I found this when looking on pinterest for an idea to make something with rubber bands! http://alwaysexpectmoore.com/2013/06/ever-changing-wood-nail-and-rubber-band-maze.html
    Even though you don’t have nails maybe you could some how use the paper clips as the anchors and find some structure/surface to attach them to!

    Reply
  • I am trying to imagine what this does when you drop it. Rubber band balls have the interesting property of bouncing really well, but unpredictably because of their uneven shape. Do the straightened paper clips hinge or rotate in interesting ways if it is bounced? (This doesn’t look lifeless to me — it simply hasn’t been set in motion yet.)

    Reply
    • Sreyas Krishnan
      January 31, 2016 8:12 am

      I’m going to have to take a slow motion video of this thing falling! It looks pretty crazy. I added a lot more paperclip links!

      Reply

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