सिर मंजूरी

Flying half way across the world to India, it was crucial that we must enter this new world with an open mind; as soon as we shut our selves out the experience we all gained would have never existed. Before departure almost everything I heard from people were connotative and in my own mind I was picturing a very large slum essentially: even though I knew there is always a division of class. Coming from a western vantage, I had come with some negative interpretations of what to expect but I was blown away when I got experience the real side of India. One of the most interesting things to me was what I called the “Indian Bobble” which consists of a head bobble with out moving the neck and just the head. This reaction is common to all people of India and a response to a question that has to be interpreted by the opposing person; I picked up on it quick and started to do it myself by the end of the first week. The interpretation of this bobble can mean all of the above: yes, no, and maybe. Likewise, my aims was to interpret this bobble into a interactive piece which would have a magic eight ball imbedded into the head to reveal an answer and or reading of the bobble. To further engage the audience, there will be cards placed in front of the bobble head’s with questions we were posed with during our travels and projects. In terms we had to decipher these questions and learn to read it for ourselves thus this pieces creates a randomized answer, which will be different, almost every time a user interacts with it.

This project dabbles into a hybrid of Industrial Design as well as Sculpture & Installation. The ID side comes from the ingenuity and mechanics of making a bobble head along side the form and final product. However the layover between these subject matters comes from the form, as sculpting the bobble head will require the more fine arts side and the interaction design for the public interaction.

Making the bobble head I dissected a magic eight ball, three times, to remove the inner capsule to use as the answer for the top of the bobble head, the motion will resulting in a randomly generated response for every shake. I realized the capsule was large and I decided to sculpt my own face, modeling it after Aaron however there is a reason I am not a sculpture student: After three long attepts I re-rooted my direction and when for a pre-made form. I bought some Disney dolls and took them apart using brute force: they were quite resilient, I must say. Once the head was removed I took a hole saw and drilled into the top of the head the same size as the capsule as well as making a small incision, as the base was wider than the top. On the capsule I attached doorstoppers with a screw coated in plumbers tape, creating a seal. The stoppers were stretched slightly to create more movement in the head. Once inserted into the head, the body and head were filled with expansive foam to keep everything in place and together.

This project pushes the boundaries of what I normally, do in a few different ways. I made me look beyond the reliance of the studios at school and how I could appropriate objects I bought and found into a final project. This pushed the situational awareness of working in environments that may not be ideal for projects and or task at hand. It reflect a lot on what we did at Kesbo with little to no budget and using found objects to create a beautiful object in the end.