Gabe Bamforth – Final Project

Though it turned out much different than I had originally intended, this project gave me a chance to apply many of the skills we learned in class over the semester. My original inflatable element was going to be reused newspaper bags, using the “cut and tape” method from our first project, but it ended up being far too floppy and would not have responded as well to constraints.

The “cloud” seemed both simpler and more attractive: I liked the combination of sky blue soft fabric and the industrial-looking nylon inflatable. I didn’t pay much attention to color in my past projects but this one gave me a distinctly calm feeling. I adapted a pattern for a sphere to produce the cloud’s football shape, and pre-cut a hole in one side for the umbilical.

I wanted to keep the “constraints” idea present in the piece, so I added the black and brown strings for aesthetics. I was hoping they’d distract people’s eyes from the actual constraining string (the white one) and they accomplished exactly that, which felt like a success.

I think the piece would benefit from a bigger scale and perhaps more “clouds.” It would be fun to experiment with inflatables that are closer to the size of people and cars (like Nancy Davidson’s bigger work) and see how the string constraints change the way we interact with them. If I had started earlier, these iterations would have been more possible.