Designing Cool Things: January 2021

As an artist, I have become familiar with the idea of using others works for inspiration within my own artwork. with the idea of remix culture I have learned plenty of new information and have gained some ideas that are taken a step further, and literal pieces (not just the idea) of artwork are used in order to create new works.

I had a bit of a struggle approaching art from this new perspective, mostly with idea generation and how I wanted to place different objects and concepts together, but ended up having plenty of joy in creating my own builds. All of the objects are from thingiverse, with a few shapes here and there added from within tinkered.

Mashup 1: Tree of Knowledge

In many cultures and stories, plants and most specifically trees are known to hold knowledge. In the same way, books and the sharing of knowledge in general is an important part of being human, because we live through our own and others shared experiences and stories. For this mashup I decided to take that idea in a literal sense, putting the two together. I also found it a little ironic that we cause the destruction of one in order to create the other.

Tree- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2846782/files

Hatchet- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3792193/files

Book- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:975039/files

Mashup 2: Oily Tea

Convenience is not always a good thing. This is meant to show the clear crossover between a casual convenience, like pouring yourself a lovely cup of tea in the morning, and a negative convenience. Having oil widely available is nice, maybe. but not as much at the cost of the many, many tonnes of oil that gets spilled into oceans and freshwater completely destroying entire ecosystems and rendering perfectly good water useless. (that's what the fish bowl is meant to represent)

Teapot- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2984264/files

Fish Dish- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1213049/files

Oil- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3844765/files

Mashup 3: Roller Skates- Made From people, For People

There was no particular motivation behind this strange creation, as soon as i saw a build someone had made of roller skates I thought to myself, what if the wheels where eyeballs? What does that say about me as a person? who knows. From that idea, this was created. with that being said, the eye wheels makes me think of the anxiety I get when I roller-skate by people in public, and I feel like everyone is watching me because I skate like a newborn baby giraffe. Maybe its just meant to induce anxiety, and that's it.

Roller Skate- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2707802/files

Eyeballs- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3127426/files

Tongue- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4600295/files

Mashup 4: Murder Rabbit

Looks can be deceiving. Just because something is cute, does not mean that it can not kick your butt, vice versa. I thought it would be interesting to add a scary element to something generally deemed as adorable and friendly. Here it is, a crazed rabbit with a knife. It looks like its asking for a hug, but I think we all know what the real plan here is.

Rabbit- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:600429

Knife- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:684102/files

Hands- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2511612/files

Mashup 5: Garbage Flavoured Water

I was thinking about how there is an insane, ungodly amount of trash piled up all over the world that isn't recyclable, isn't sustainable, and does nothing but take up space. It seems to pile up almost as quickly as water comes pouring out of a tap. There is a lot of beauty in the world being covered up by peoples gigantic trash tap. This mashup is partially representational, and partly literal.

Tap- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:610131/files

Trash Pile- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3658548/files

Trees- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:279864/files

Flower Pot- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:99658/files

Mashup 6: Candy Corn

A dumb little pun brought to life! It is a unicorn made out of candy. It has a candy corn horn, peppermint hoofs, gum-ball eyes, and a tail made of freezies.

Unicorn- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:402596/files

Hoofs- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3458295/files

Horn- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2575426/files

Tail/Mane- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3100525/files

Mashup 7: The Taste Of Winning

Poking around at the idea of excessive spending on things that are not needed, and don't tend to prove beneficial towards someone, but unfortunately for different reasons end up being gravitated towards out of habit, or addiction, self sabotage, or maybe some other reason. this specifically is in relation to gambling, but it is one of many things that share the same traits.

Face- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2994999/files

Dice- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:147883/files

Coins- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:209089/files

Mashup 8: Working Couch

More often than not, couches are seen as and used for comfort.

with the amount of work I have been doing lately, I have taken to my couch to comfort me physically while I work myself mentally to get work done, and it definitely helps. Here is the most literal visual I could give you in relation to that idea. At some point, you spend enough time on the couch that you sort of just become part of it. a couch, but one that's getting plenty of work done, at that.

Laptop- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1300304/files

Arms- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:614366/files

Legs- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2648470/files

Mashup 9: New Article: Reasons for Destruction

As someone who often doom scrolls through news articles, one thing you learn quickly is that there tends to be much more negative, gruesome, fake, and uncomfortable news than there is of anything else. The mashup I made is to show how this always seems to be what jumps out, because unfortunately there is lots of it.

Newspapers- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3877186/files

Stumps- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3008880/files

Explosion- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19478

Person- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3873044/files

Mashup 10: A City Built On Bones