Opposite Aesthetic of Upcycle Project

For my Upcycle project, I am making a lamp that has the influence of the steampunk aesthetic. I am using materials and parts that are wood, metal and plastic gears, wire, parchment paper, and my old rear wheel bike cassette. I thought these parts really met the steampunk aesthetic since steampunk is overly complicated, metallic, and dull colors, and has an old vibe. It also takes inspiration from the Victorian Era and the Industrial Revolution.

To be the opposite of this, I feel like the cubism aesthetic, pop-art, cottagecore, or biophillic design meets this criteria, but I wanted to explore Cubism the most. Cubism started in Paris in the early 20th century. It has the features of the objects within the painting broken up and made up of “weird” shapes that typically do not reflect what the actual thing is. This is done in a way that one can still make out what the object of interest is.

Cubism has been coined by Juan Gris. Some other key artists who took up Cubism are Pablo Picasso, Georges Barque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, and many more. Picasso is one of the most famous of these artists and a bunch of his art is easily accessible. A great example of Picasso’s art that is Cubism is The Weeping Woman. It was painted in 1937 near the height of Cubism and was a small part of his bigger painting Guernica. It is a painting of a woman whose proportions such as hands, ears, facial features, etc. are not that of a typical human even located in different places on the body. Her face, hat, and clothes are made up of various shapes that do not make sense and are all different colors that are not associated with humans.

The Weeping Woman [2]

Houses at I’Estaque [1]

There are several changes that I would make if I pivoted my lamp from a steampunk aesthetic to cubism. First off, I would use a variety of shapes like triangles, squares, trapezoids, etc. I believe I could take this in two different routes. I could make them all 3D, or go with a standard lamp shape, but have the designs on the parts have these shapes. I would probably go with the first, like the drawing I made below. The base would be a bunch of 3D shapes mixing different colors. I would have the lamp shade be more like the second idea where the shape is standard, but the patterns on it are random and wild like the way of cubism paintings. I would also use 3D printers since I believe that would be the best for assembly and provide bright colors.

My Idea of the Base of the Lamp

 

Sources – Images:

[1] Barque, G. (1908). Houses at l’estaque.

Sources – Content:

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (2025, January 14). Cubism. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/Cubism

The weeping woman, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso. (n.d.). https://www.pablopicasso.org/the-weeping-woman.jsp

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, December 1). Cubism. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism

Web server. (n.d.). https://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/511/projects/pfordresher/final/Cubism.htm