The last blog, the epic and engrossing Robots In The Dust, has pretty much served its purpose, and now it's time for something new.
Every year the Burning Man festival funds a relatively small number of art installations for display out on the playa for that year's event. Sometime in February I assembled a proposal called "The Hand Of Man" to be considered for this funding.
To my surprise and great joy, even amid stiff competition, my proposal was selected as one of 40 funded projects!
This will be a colossal undertaking, and I think I will be spending pretty much every minute between now and approximately August 18th designing, building, or thinking about this project.
In short, The Hand Of Man will be an enormous (25 feet long) human right hand and forearm, hydraulically actuated, and made of steel. It will be controllable from an ergonomically accurate "glove" controller which ANYONE can stick their right hand into. Anything this lucky person does with their flesh-and-blood hand will be accurately and quickly reproduced (but with thousands of times the amount of force) by the giant hand. (If this quick description was not enough for your hungry mind, click here for the text of the full proposal.)
I will begin materials acquisition the week of March 17th, and should actually be beginning to cut and weld this monstrosity together late that week (that's NEXT week!!!! I'm so EXCITED!!!) If you're reading this, and you have a burning desire to cut, grind, and weld gigantic pieces of steel together... in other words if you want to help on this epic art journey, well, don't be shy. Email me (crobox@gmail.com) or just come on over!!!
At this point there are obviously no pictures to show, but I can show the latest drawings, which I've been working on feverishly.
I think that just like Robots In The Dust, this blog will probably incorporate other exciting happenings that don't strictly fit into the stated topic, so if you are just dying to know what is going on with Christina and me (and I know you are!) you might just find out here!
Next blog entry: The TV piece that will be done about the Hand, (sorry, I just can't tell you any more right now!) and the beginnings of the Hand, including the custom-built Hydraulic Power Unit!! (Oooh, don't Hydraulic Power Units just get you all excited?!?!?)
2 comments:
Alright, I knew it was gonna happen. Are there any big build days set yet. Maybe all your "old" friends can get to it!!! Robochrist rides again!!!
Congrats on the BM art grant.
Can't wait to see THoM on the playa.
TomD
(I helped produce the 97 Austin show)
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