Nels and I met on 3/2/12 and we began right away just brainstorming ideas of creatures coming to life through movement in an installation piece since we are both interested in making some kind of movable, interactive being. Nels is interested in having audience or viewer interaction with and control of the piece - allowing them a chance to help breath life into the creature and make it come alive (kind of like the human pump idea, utilizing gears and metal chains to help the user directly and indirectly power the sculpture).
We discussed various creature ideas spanning from underwater sea monsters with tentacles, and sea anemones, to walking land animals that were combined with plants. I also had an idea to make some kind of animal out of a bike - it doesn't have to move at first, but it could be the beginning for further development of that idea to eventually create a bike creature that comes to life when you ride the bike.
Both of us have a particular interest in skeletons and possibly utilizing real bones and skulls (or just studying the anatomy of various animals to mimic and recreate skeletal structures) to create a sculpture.
In the end, we both decided we wanted to collaborate and create some kind of moving creature sculpture. Our homework was to come up with a list of the top ten animals/creatures we were interested in.
So, a general concept sketch for our project idea: Create some kind of interactive, movable creature/sculpture that comes to life through movement and incorporates the following concepts: skeletal structures/bones, the animal (land or sea or sky), and movement to show how this creature moves through space.
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