Letter To Original Object:
Dear Lamp,
When I first saw you, lamp, I thought you would be my perfect match. I thought that we would get along forever, lighting up my life and being there when I needed you.You first caught my eye when we were in that savers. I was just a girl then, three months ago, and I did not know what I needed. I bought you for two dollars. When I got you home you sat in the piles of stuff ready to be packed away for New York. And when we both finally got here, I could not use you. I loaned you to my roommate. She got good use out of you, but I’m afraid I have to say goodbye.
I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know your manufacturer or your wattage or who you were used by before me. I think I need to find a better life for you than being used by my roommate. I think that I can find a better use for you than just being used by my roommate. And that is why I’ve decided to destroy you. To make you into something useful to me once again. Your new life will bring new efficiency to the world, and you should be proud of the thing you get to become. When I bought you the savers on the turnpike said you were worth a mere two dollars, but once we are done you will be worth so much that all people will be green with envy.
Letter To New Object:
Dear Machine,
You have been made into something actually useful and beautiful instead of being a lamp the lost any sense of actual value. It is at this point that I would like to say goodbye to the object you were. When I found you being sold for pennies I thought that you would be something to use before acquiring something more useful came along. It was not until I ripped you apart that I truly realized the beautiful creature you are.
Like a phoenix, you had to die to be reborn. And in your rebirth did you finally become the life you should have always had. Your hard outer shell was nearly impenetrable, hiding the beautiful bits and pieces and design within. You were too advanced for the people to truly understand your worth, including myself. Now, no one will be able to say you are worthless.
You are now a creature of incredible importance. You are art, your insides were exposed, and now you are whole once again. In your new life I wish you hope, prosperity, and the ability to continue evolving into something beautiful.
The Work:
The deconstructing of this object was extremely difficult. It take an entire day just to get inside the machine itself. Originally I planned to unscrew the bottom and pull out the insides of the machines to examine what was inside. However, after attempting to unscrew the one nut on the machine for around 20 minutes with several different tools it seemed I had to create a new plan of attack.
It was at this point that I decided to go in from the top. My thought process was that because it was originally a lamp there must be a lightbulb, and therefore a way to change the lightbulb. I assumed all I had to do was pop off the plastic top and expose the inner workings of the machines. I was very wrong. I misjudged the entire mechanism. Not only was the plastic even more difficult to remove there wasn’t even a lightbulb inside.
Instead, there was a LED light board inside, connected directly to the wire plug that would eminate the light. This was incredibly interesting, and such an amazing idea. The machine looked as if it had been produced in the 90’s, and so I was not expecting the machine to be complex. It met my expectation of non complexity, with only a few parts making the whole machine working. It is a throw away machine that was never meant to be opened and examined. Rather, once the machine stopped working it was meant to be thrown out and not something someone could fix.
It was extremely interesting to crack open a machine that its original creator never wanted to be exposed. It made me feel like I was making a discovery every step of the way. In order to fully understand this machine I had to break it. I felt upset once I understood how it this machine was built and that it could never be used like that again.
The feelings I had were eased once I was able to create something new out of it. I had no idea what my machine would look like before it was done. I loved building this machine and creating something that become more of a child’s toy then something meant to be used in a more professional and adult setting. A clamp bed lamp was turned into something that swings and moves in a free flowing way. It is so different from the fixe object that I started with.
In creating this machine I also wanted to stick with my resolution to make this object more difficult to use. I built a stand to restrict the motion of the machine and create a fixed point. This made my machine more interesting in my opinion. It allowed the drawings to be more free flowing and less decided by who ever wields it.
