Steven Krensky is obviously a man who loves stuff! Gallery owner, art collector and aficionado of old things that still look good without working any more, I guess The Temporary Art Repair Shop was perfect for him. What he brought in was two large boxes with the parts of at least three if not more old phones, all pulled apart and heaped together in a big jumble. What I really love about old technical gear, is that you can sort of see on it what it’s supposed to do and how it goes about. Only a few people would get the same wow experience from opening up a brand new phone and studying the circuit board in it, but even someone who is so not an electronics geek like myself (to my big shame!) can sort of get what the different parts of these old monsters are supposed to do to each other. Since there was so many tantalizing parts in the boxes Steven brought in, there also had to be a number of false starts of course. The beautiful wooden box was supposed to become a strong chest with a hidden lock that only opened when one “dialled” the right combination. The handset was supposed to become a LED torch that lit up when you blew into the mouthpiece (impossible since the old style Bakelite parts where cast almost solid for stability, with just a very narrow channel for the wires). And many more ideas. None of which had sprung from the real functioning of the phone but rather from what it looked able to do.

Only when I stopped high-flying my ideas and sat down and actually tried myself through all the different parts did I realize what had to be done. This was coming back to my original thought: that in old machines one could still see what every part performed. The part I first picked out was the ring tone generator of the oldest phone. This ring tone generator, was, yes, simply a generator. Five fat and heavy magnets around a hand cranked copper spool capable of transforming your hand power into low voltage electricity. Part one done! Mounted very visibly and with clear instructions on what to do, I imagine this part of the piece hanging outside a front door (but it could also be used to communicate between different interior parts of a house, like say for example the parlour and the kitchen).

With a cable visibly leading on to somewhere else, and then into the next part of the artwork, the door bell was complete. The only parts I had NOT torn out of this old telephone body, was the two round bells and the striker between them capable of generating a both loud and annoying signal, about as loud and annoying as one would crank at the other end as a matter of fact. Turning the handle one could both feel the resistance of the magnets holding back, and then as one forces it immediately hear the striking of the bell in some other part of the house. Simple, practical and instructive – a completely gridless door bell. I do hope it comes to use.

Mr Krensky with the Crank part of Gridless set up in Transformer before he got to take it with him.

I had been given the opportunity of presenting my project to David Page’s sculpture class at American University, and to the extent he promoted it to his students and insisted they drop by with a broken object, of course he had to himself too. Now, for anyone who is not familiar with David’s own work, the chewed up dog toy he brought me would seem rather innocuous and innocent, but I knew better than that. If you take a look at his website you’ll understand what I mean, especially with regard to his Simple Machines.

Now, it is not often I get to transform an object in direct response to the work of a fellow artist, but in this case I just had to. I mean, if David didn’t pick that chewed up rubber tri-ball-cum-rubber-tube as a direct reference to his work, it sure was the same aesthetic sensibility which he uses in designing his sculptures that subconsciously guided him in his choice. And the answer is no, after having peaked at David’s web page for a while, the red rubber implement didn’t make me think of unruly dogs. What does it make you think of?

My answer to David’s problem was to be as useless as his own sculptural puns, and hopefully suggestive in the same way and direction. I know David is heavily into wood, but I felt he could need a bit of softening up here. My soft ceremonial sculptor’s wedge is, exactly like with David’s own wedges and priers, meant for an imagined and hopefully never discovered orifice or crack. I call it ceremonial to emphasize the cultic-magical role of the artist in today’s post-ritualistic capitalist society. The wedge itself is cast from a rubber silicone for mould making, and I did something cute which I would call an “inclusive cast” on the lower part of the rubber toy, where I left part of the object used for making the plaster mould inside it when pouring the modelling compound, thus fusing or fitting object and hollow space together. The wedge shape itself was first modelled in plasticine and then cast in plaster. The only thing I am curious about, is whether David keeps it at home or in his studio…

Amy West and her young son brought in a bag of broken toys that just screamed out to be transformed. On of them, which I ended up opting for was a headless pig in soft rubber. I have no idea what kind of head the pig had before, but just the body was very inspiring. Given that the other toy they had with them, for me to have a choice, was a broken police car, there was a joke there almost forcing itself onto me: I mean, what to do with a headless pig and a crashed police car if not a cruel pun on the law enforcement? As often happens though, when I feel pressured by items or ideas in a certain direction, I chose to resist and see what else will crop up. Since the pig was open in more directions than the car, this was the way to go. Considering all the different kinds of heads I could give the pig, it really struck me that they would all be denigrating in some kind. I mean, what kind of head can you stick on a pig without insulting someone? Poor pigs, not only do we keep them just for their bacon, we also look down on them to such an extent that all and everyone would be infuriated for being associated with them. What to do then? Well, I decided to go for one of the well worn clichés, but at least one that would hold a double bottom. Both as a political comment and as a piggy bank.

I modelled the head for the capitalist pig from my memory of the Monopoly guy. It was first made in plasticine and then after I formed a plaster mould around it, I cast it in silicone rubber. I had bought this rubber for mould making. It was really meant to form the mould itself for casting several small casts after each other, but I ended up using it for the sculpture itself instead. Rubbers and plastics are tricky materials for artists. I like them for their associations with industrial products like toys and suchlike, but dislike the material in itself. As an artist, I find it important not only to be attracted by beautiful and smooth materials, but also to venture where ugliness lives. Sticky, stretchy rubber will bring with it something completely different than nicely carved wood or exclusive bronze.

I feel a little bit bad about the very qualities of the rubber I used. Mould making silicone is very greasy, or “non-sticky”, which is great when using it for casting, but not so great when trying to paint it. I didn’t have that many paints around, and also no time to properly hunt around for something better, and after trying the ones I had, I must admit they didn’t impress me. They simply didn’t want to stick to the surface. Alas, what could I do? All that was left to me was to apologize and explain this to Ms West, plus to give her the permission to repaint the head with better quality paints when and if this became necessary.

Nicole Lakey came in with her US Army wrist identification bracelet, which, following regulations, was the only jewellery she had been allowed to wear during her turn with the medical corps. Finally back in civilian life, she expressed relief with not having to follow such strict rules all the times. As I understood it from Ms Lakey, her Army bracelet was still important as a memorabilia of that period in her life, but she was not happy wearing it just as it was, and preferred her current greater freedom. For me, the challenge was to transform the bracelet without shedding its ability to symbolize that important experience of Nicole’s, while still clearly marking that period as over.

It might look as if I just twisted the bracelet together into a knot, but look again and you will see that it is actually still a band, or a strip, but now closed instead of being open, and furthermore describing a specific mathematical figure. It is a Moebius strip, a band of material that closes in on itself and due to a half-turn before being put together again, makes both sides of the strip into one. Following the metal surface with ones finger, one would have to travel along the strip twice around, covering all the surface on both sides before coming back to where one started. For me, applying the Moebius twist to Nicole’s bracelet suggests the two sides of her life, the civilian and army sides, and how they are inextricably bound together. Furthermore, I didn’t just twist the bracelet once, but also bent it into the shape of a bi-torus, the figure of eight, which symbolizes eternity. Will Ms Lakey’s memories of her time in the Army last forever? Certainly not, but within the perspective of her own life, I assume that it is the kind of  experience that shapes her and stays with her for her whole life.

Matthew Sutton, an art student, comes in with a broken fan that his mum gave him to air out his boarding room. Now, one just has to wonder if it was hot air, neglected cleaning, or prohibited smoke that was meant to be fanned out. Or one just leaves all such speculation to the side and attacks the task at hand. To me, an object that was once able to perform any kind of movement or locomotion immediately calls out for a modified reinstatement of such, but often to the detriment of the sometimes better ideas hidden more in the form or structure than in the function. And honestly, isn’t the case in this case much more interesting than the spinning machinery it once held? And even after it’s wings were clipped, the fan still kept suggesting a spin.

Getting rid of the fan liberated the case to be a box for other things. Fitting it with hinges was exceedingly simple, and as it already had a handle, I didn’t even need to add that. But a case for what? Well, for paintings of course, for an art student. And all the air holes in the surface of the case makes it ideal for paintings with still wet paint. Isn’t this a typical problem for art students, that their masterpieces are still wet come crit? And how to then transport them without smudging both paintings and clothes as well as walls, teachers and colleagues? With a wet painting portfolio!

The trickiest bit to make was the small hasp that now locked the portfolio. It looks simple enough in design, but given how flimsy the case is, I had to make it just easy enough to spring without having to put any stress on the plastic casing, but still firm enough to hold the portfolio closed. The devil is in the details, or rather, he is in the muddling of the details.

Bobbie Coles was unlucky with transporting fragile goods. She came in with two objects, both glass or ceramics that had broken even before she managed to get them home, and in both cases the accidents had been caused by someone else. The large blue vase was my choice for further development, mostly because of is simple and appealing look. The vase had been broken by the taxi driver Bobbie had used to get it home from the shop, despite her having asked him to be careful with it. Imagine how disappointing! Usually when we ask someone to be careful when they obviously should, they get slightly annoyed by this, but when someone then despite this still manages to break what we asked them to take special care with, one has to wonder…

I hope Ms Coles will see the accident in a brighter light now though, as without it I wouldn’t have had any reason for improving it into a lamp. The build is simple enough, as anyone can see, but the small details are the most important as always. The previously sharp edge has been carefully sanded down so that it is nice and soft to the touch. And I picked a bulb that reflects the light downwards, to make sure it all got coloured blue, and wouldn’t split in one yellow shaft upwards surrounded by a blue ring around it.

The silver Tiffany frame delivered by Ms Tien Claudio represented a cracked glass as well as a cracked marriage. I didn’t ask how either of them had broken, but I had a feeling the one was caused by the other. Keeping the cracks didn’t seem so nice, in my view, as my first impression of Ms Claudio was one of optimism and openness to life, but clearly, the portrait still held some significance to her, otherwise why would she have handed it in? Turning it back and forth and up and down in my mind for a bit, the focus of my interest landed more and more on the people in the image, and less so on the frame. Sure, it was a nice frame, but it would always be insignificant compared to the legacy the portrait itself held in Ms Claudio’s life. So the broken glass had to go, and after a bit of deliberation I decided to also get rid of her ex-husband. The new portrait, without glass but with a small mirror and a more open function, better represents where Tien is today I hope.

It is funny how artworks sometimes name themselves. In the case of this re-worked portrait, it happened as soon as I put it up for display in the shop window of Transformer. I do this with all finished artworks, as a way of showing people passing by what we are doing and how it works. In this case it really worked quickly: just as I placed the portrait, a man who was watching me from outside knocked on the window and called in to me. “Hey there, can I be the mystery man?” he asked with a huge grin, after having imagined himself on that beach. Of course I couldn’t answer that question for Tien, but I still had my title given to me.

Apart from kindly hosting The Temporary Art Repair Shop as one of three featured projects in a panel discussion on social practice in the arts, Goethe Institute Washington DC of course also wanted its own transformed object. Fittingly for an office environment, Ms Blume choose to drop by with a piece of broken office equipment. Apparently, they have several similar desk lamps at Goethe, but this one had lost its shade, and the bulb didn’t work any more either. It was still a nice piece of solid Italian design though, and I was happy to keep and incorporate the well built adjustable arm on its solid foot into a new function.

An artwork requires a symbolical function much more than a practical one, even if I agree it should be well designed and constructed. For the German cultural institute in the capital of the US, I felt a magical re-enactment of the crucial influence of America on modern German society was called for. Instead of light though, I wanted to focus on wind, and specifically in this case, on the wind of change. The text on the side of the wooden fan, which you can see that I added on the image above, reads “Please keep air-flow Eastwards”. I hand-made the wooden funnel from some nice pieces of hardwood donated to the Repair Shop, and fitted it with twin computer fans, capable of delivering a hardly perceptible but still steady draft of air. Specifically the weakness of the wind in combination with its persistence pleased me. That wind of change that has for better and worse been blowing at Germany from the US for the last 75 years or so, has clearly had a huge impact on German society and culture, although being of course just one of the factors that has helped totally transform Germany since then.

Wind of Change by the Scorpions remains a huge reference to me from my own youth following the collapse of the Soviet Union on TV, from not very far away in neighbouring Sweden. For anyone growing up in those days under the constant shadow of the threat of nuclear annihilation, the significance of such changes are hard to remember correctly. For all the talk of terrorism going on today, I can’t help thinking that the non violent resolution of those tensions in the late eighties and early nineties completely dwarf everything happening today in significance, which we tend to forget, maybe precisely because they never turned close to as ugly as they had the potential to. For me, to commemorate what I see as a weak but steady wind of reform blowing eastwards over Europe during my childhood, the Office-Fan of Change feels a fitting memorabilia. Which Ms Sylvia Blume from the Goethe Institute seems to agree with.

It is especially nice to receive a photograph of the artwork “in situ” so to speak, from the recipient of it. Thank you!