2. Bodies
© Rebecca Louise Breuer
In this section, I show, document and reflect upon the bodies that feature in my final project. I do not limit myself to human bodies whilst doing so. Moreover, as long as I'm working with a scale model, actual human bodies cannot be affected and are replaced by more abstract scale models.
These two figures depict the participants in the installation/performance
It proved a challenge to reduce the hanging figures in size in clay. I thus chose to use pawns and think they display the aesthetic I like.
I first dyed some wool that came from an old topping for a mattress and tried to felt around a ball. But this material proved felted already and it wouldn't become nice and strong...
So, I decided to use blue jeans instead. It still fits the theme and has been dyed with indigo as well. Even though I could have used a compass to calcuted the size of the panels, but this wouldn't work for a 150 cm ball. This website explains exactly how to calculate it usinf a calculator. You need to, however, make sure you turn on the radius of your calculator.
In order to calcute what the circumference is, you need to multiply π with the diameter of the ball. In my case π x 18 = 56.5 cm. Then divide this number by two to obtain the length of a single panel. Thus 56.5 : 2 = 28.3 cm. Then divide the circumference with the number of panels you want the ball to consist of to obtain the width of the center of the panel. Thus 56.5 : 6 = 9,43. Then you use a formula to calculate the width (S) for each hight on the central axis: S = 9 x a
I bought three inflatable plastic balls, which was a good thing, because I soon realised that I needed to use the needle of a pump rather than make a large hole into the ball iteself (see under 'Technologies' for the final construction).
Below you can find the first version of the assembled 'bodies'. I, however found the denim too course for the scale model and later created a new cover from a finely woven denim.
