241 Steam Punk Precedents

Similar to Theo Jansen's work which I had been looking at I also wanted to incorporate a steam punk theme. I have always been a huge fan of steam punk themed projects. Some examples are Eye of the Storm by Christopher Alender (some screenshots shown here), or the movie "9". I really like the mechanical look to it and the inclusion of cogs and time based equiptment. I wanted to use these ideas to mechanicalize my own character. This way, as well as involving Jansens walkers, I could create interesting ways of moving characters around.

Punk

241 Concepts

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Concept 1

My first idea, based on Theo Jansen's sand walkers was to create a walker myself. I based it loosely on the weird head/spider toy from Toy Story 1. I remember it being a really scary concept and I wanted to play on that. By using similar techniques of moving limbs that Theo has used I could create a really interesting mobile character. This character would have been a rogue creation from a craftsmen, or kid, and have to explore its surroundings, perhaps try and reach a place which it cannot access.

Concept 2

My second concept was similar to the first in that I wanted to take a creation and put it in an environment. This character was based off a crafts manequin and I used a lot of steam punk infulences to create artificial limbs and intelligence for it. The idea behind this character was for it to wake up on a captain's desk, see a strange light (inspired by AWOLnations Sail video) and attempt to reach it. However, it would end in devastation.

Concept 3

My talking to the tutors and discussing the difference between inanimate and animate I decided to not focus on creating a humanoid character but to focus on just seperate limbs. I already had a mock storyboard done up for a humourous wily coyote esque situation where a character would open a door, so I decided to go with a hand instead of a foot. The hand was the obvious choice but I thought the foot would lead to less interesting situations within the given environment. This hand was also mechanicalized, to suit the steam punk theme from the last concept.

Theo Jansen

I've decided to look at Theo Jansen's work as a precendednt for Project 2.

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Out of the four given artists and architects I found that Theo's work was more exciting for me to look at than the others.

Things I like about his work-

1. Materials are very basic, using tubing, rope, ties and plastic. This is neat because it shows how very basic simple everyday materials can be taken from their usual use and combined to create new life. Note that there are no electronic parts, which means that the life is created without the use of artificial life. I can bring this into my own work by looking at combining simple materials rather than making complex ones.

 

2. Forms are crazy and wild. We would not think of shapes like this as new beings or creatures. They are quite rigid and non fluid when static but when the machine begins to move it can be quite fluid and soothing to watch. This can be incorporated by having smoother flowing parts on my character.

 

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