Wild Beasts / Terrorism
Wild Beasts / Terrorism is one of the 10 Modern Plagues. The biblical plague spelled in Hebrew is Wild Beasts. Terrorism is definitely a modern plague. The cost to our society is enormous, not just financially, but practically, and emotionally. These photo and videos below illustrate this artwork in progress.
The Idea Behind
The fractured elements are symbolic of how terrorism fractures our society. It is not just the impact of one terrorist incident or the loss of life. This goes beyond the cost to develop the infrastructure to prevent terrorism, or pay for the insurance, or delays caused by security screening. The biggest impact of terrorism is the fear that we are not safe in our own communities, that we can not trust our neighbor, or that a stranger from another country may be perceived as our enemy rather than as a friend.
Test shot on my living room wall.
The black shadow of the Hebrew letter floats in front of the wall as if it were written by the hand of G_d in the air.
Close up image of the triangles.
There will be a vibrating motor attached to the back of each letter so that the triangles will spontaneously move and vibrate. The movement makes the most amazing sound.
Behind the Scene Working in the Studio
From the early steps in the construction and assembly to the final steps towards completion.
The letter shadows were constructed from large sheets of steel from vintage steel dollhouse roof. The edges are rolled over for structural strength.
Working on another letter, cutting all the triangles. It is a real challenge to create this metaphor for fracturing of society...and retain some level of organization.
The rolled edge keeps the letter on a more even plane, yet it feels a lot more dimensional like it was written by the hand of G_d in the air.
I developed a method for attaching the wire to the triangular elements. Every one of these brass fixtures needs to be cut into individual elements.
After I created the letter shadow, I created a second identical letter cut into triangular shapes trying to keep all these pieces in some semblance of order.
Every wire needed a small brass fixture riveted to the triangular elements and soldered to the back of the letter so they could float out into the air.
The paint must be scrapped off the letter before soldering.
This whole assembly of the letter took forever. So many parts, so many details.
Here you can see the triangular elements hovering over the letter. The letter will be painted black last.
Constructing the hanging system for Terrorism
It was extremely difficult to figure out how to hang the letters in front of the shadow. This is particularly difficult because the artwork hangs on the wall but it still has to be able to move and vibrate. These parts were the original idea. It was changed to springs which you can see below.
In the video below you can see that I am testing the idea of springs as both a spacer between the shadow and the letter, and a way to allow it to move.
Each of the videos below, is a demonstration of progress that represents about 16 hours of work.
In the video below, you can see that the springs are now mounted by brass domed fixtures that were screwed into the shadow and the letter. This took a lot of mistakes, trial and error.
After assembly and disassembly like 10 times for each letter, we were finally ready for a test. Would it work? Below is our first test.
Simultaneous with the fabrication of the letters, I hired a mechanical engineer, and a electrical engineer software engineer capable of helping me with the electronic components that would make this vibrate and move. The mechanical engineer purchased many different kinds of devices for testing the movement. We needed something strong enough to move the letters,
Question and debate circulated about whether this should work on batteries or electricity? Each had plus and minus in the debate about function. So much was unknown. We eventually settled on using electricity which would not require battery replacement. It
In the video below, we are testing the function of the solenoid with what is called a “development board.” All this wiring was beyond my ability and knowledge. It is far more complicated than I expected, and I had no previous experience with solenoid and ardinos.
In the next video, the electrical engineer /software designer talks about milliseconds of electricity and a lot of information that made this work.