Leaving a trace

As a response to Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy, who worked with the idea of leaving a mark in nature, I decided to create a response which is rather abstract, but has the same idea behind it. The artists created marks in nature and left their own body marks at the scene whether it would be a footprint, marks in the grass or some sort of an arrangement. 

I decided to go with the idea of tiny marks such as cells, finger prints of hair. All those belong to someone and definitely leave a trace behind. I went ahead and got samples from my own body which included my cheek cells and hairs from my eye lashes. You don't really notice them in every day life, but I thought 'what if I were to enlarge them' which is where I got the idea of using a microscope to show what those human parts look life from up close. Of course we've all seen what a cell looks like when you put it under a microscope, but when it comes to your own cells, the whole thing becomes much more exciting since it's all about you. 

I've been able to use my phone camera to get some images from my own microscope. It took about 20 tries until I was able to get a good photo since a tiniest movement would set the whole thing off. The image quality didn't come out the best either because I don't have the required equipment to take such photos and using a digital camera wouldn't work either since you required a small lens to be able to take a photo over the microscope. Using a phone camera was the only option I had.

Body Extention

Rebecca Horn is an artist who worked with body extensions. As a response, I decided to create a huge suit of armor. I always liked the idea of creating your own little armor pieces and I just love doing such crafts. The images I've shown here is the work in progress suit I'm creating right now. It's going to a full body armor extension. At the moment, I'm done with the main parts such as the legs and the arms and currently I'm working on the chest piece and the helmet which should be done in 2 weeks from now on. I will also be wearing this out to a convention which will take place at the end of October on 26th on Saturday and 27th on Sunday. 

Below you can see the armor with color. It'll be a mix of black and yellow with a touch of white and red. I'm currently putting a lot of my free time into creating this suit and finishing it before the deadline. 

I was able to finish the whole suit before the conventions and also create some accessories to go with it! I wore the whole thing on my way to Canning Town and then walked from there to the Excel house. 

Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn (24 March 1944, Michelstadt, Hesse ) is a German installation artist and film director most famous for her body modifications such as Einhorn (Unicorn), a body-suit with a very large horn projecting vertically from the headpiece, and Pencil Mask, a mesh harness for the head with many pencils projecting out.


When I first saw this artist I though 'Wow I really like those wings that can expand and fall back up'.

These wings make me think of kinetic art which you can wear. I love doing sculptures and robotic parts which are wearable and I usually make them interact-able just as this artist is doing here.


The wearable sculptures she creates are called 'Body Sculptures' which can only be seen fully when someone is wearing them. When left on it's own, the viewer cannot see the full potential of the sculpture nor understand what purpose the sculpture has.

Nemo Gould

Nemo Gould (b. October 3, 1975) is an American artist and sculptor known widely for his kinetic found-object sculpture as well as two-dimensional graphic work. Much of his work presents whimsical aluminium and wooden robotic and sci-fi creatures of as-yet unnamed and threatening genus and species. The moment I saw this human sculpture, I knew that this artist is going to link back to my project. What I found very interesting about Gould is his use of recycled material to create those sculptures.

It links back to 'Thinking outside the box' where I transformed a cardboard box into a robotic arm. Although my work doesn't actually move as this artists kinetic-art, I was already planning on making something that moves on it's own, or becomes part of your own body when you wear it.

My first impression of Goulds art was that he loves robots and mechanics just like me. I was always experimenting with objects and scrapped material to create my very own sculptures and I was already doing those when I was 10 years old. I always liked finding items just laying around streets and then going back home to see what I can turn those into. I always loves costuming and started to create armor parts and then wear them on my body for fun. Although the artist didn't 'wear' his sculptures, I think wearing something still classifies into kinetic arts.

From what I can see, the artist uses metals, cans, plastics, rubber, springs and other various metal objects to create his sculptures. 

Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures.

Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. A unique feature of her work is that her figures are often painted in monochromatic black or white.
When looking up various artists, Nevelson got me interested the most especially when I looked back at my first task which was building the huge robot inside a city.

At my first impression, the artist reminded me a lot of Andy Warhol. Nevelson placed objects into boxes, but never closed them up and left what was in there exposed to viewers which is an opposite thing of what Andy Warhol does. He puts objects in boxes and then seals them up so you never actually know what is inside the box, but you know that they contain something from Andy Warhols past.

The thing I like the most about Louises Nevelson work is that she uses objects which she finds. I think that the objects you find are more interesting than the objects you already posses and of course a single person can have some very interesting items, but when you find objects lost or left behind by other people, that object can tell a story of the person who left it behind. Even something simple like an empty coffee cup and a newspaper on a table can already tell you that the person likes to start his/ her mornings in Starbucks.

Nevelson collects those very objects and by having several on them presented at once, makes you think of all the kinds of people whom those objects belonged to.

One of her quotes say
"I never for one minute questioned
what I had to do. I did not think for one minute that
I didn't have what I have.
It just didn't down to me.
And so if you know what you have
then you know that there's nobody on earth
that can affect you."

This quote suggest that the artist followed what she had to do without a second thought. It tells us that perhaps the artist had clear goals at her mind and knew what she had to do to achieve them. The part of the quote which states And so if you know what you have then you know that there's nobody on earth that can affect you." is a lectural quote which from my speculation means that if you earned something and you know it's yours, then there is nobody that can take it away from you.

Transforming a box

On week 3, the new task was to transform a box. I took one of the many boxes which I had left over from the first project and was asked to completely transform it.

The first idea that came to my head was to make a robotic arm. I make those all the time during my free time and I'm very had at using cardboard in different ways that you usually wouldn't think of; however a robot arm on it's own didn't sound too interesting so I decided to give it a little twist.

In this image, you can see part of the robotic hand. This particular piece fitted on my own hand a bit like a piece of armor, although the purpose of this hand was to carry school implements such as pencils, pens or sharpeners.

During this task the only materials that I have used of tape and the box itself. I restricted myself from using anything else because it would then ruin the idea of transforming the box. Tape was acceptable because it was simply to stick parts of it together.

In 3 hours, I was able to create a full hand. Unfortunately I didn't have enough cardboard to make movable joints, but I considered this idea during the process. I was also able to make additional holds for a marker pen and a glue stick.

Throughout the whole process of making this hand, I was thinking of putting it onto the robot I built before. This was, whenever I made a piece of armor, I could add it to the robot and with time, it would gradually become a fully upgraded machine.

I originally had an idea of creating a wristband that could be used to hold school equipment. With this idea, I came up with creating a full robot hand that can carry equipment instead of it just being a wristband alone.

Box meanings

My second task in the course was to take a cardboard box and place it around Balham and take pictures of it. As strange as it sounds, it was actually a lot of fun doing that because I was able to know the idea of 'thinking outside the box' a lot more. I was asked to place the box down thinking about the meaning the box will have depending on what location I place it in. E.g. When I placed it down next to some garbage, you will think that the box itself is garbage too, but if I were to place it in a shop, you'd think that there are items in the box waiting to be delivered. This whole idea got me interested to try out doing this task in different ways.

Putting a box in the middle of the road and photographing it might sound crazy, but it's not the craziest thing I've done in my life so it wasn't too embarrassing. The idea behind this was to give a sense of depression. When you see a box on the middle of the road, you will think that it's going to get run over by a car. Just placing it on the road gives the viewer an idea of danger or even suicide.

Another thing it can suggest is isolation. The box is stationary and can't move whilst all the vehicles around it can. This can suggest that there is someone who's too afraid to move as if he was stuck in the middle of the road with moving cars surrounding him without giving him an escape route. This leads to some very deep thinking although it's just a box on the road. A box can suggest something completely different which doesn't without looking at the box itself. It can give meaning to something else whilst just being an object at a certain area.

This image shows my box next to a newspaper stand. This tells you that there are magazines inside of the box, but the box can also be empty. I took this image at 1pm which gives an opening to a new factor which is time. Every morning, there are people giving out newspapers which are located in boxes. At 1pm, those people no longer give out those newspapers so an image of the box taken at that time can suggest that it is empty, but if it was taken at 8am, you could argue that there is something inside of that box.