A powerful motor locked in a plastic shell, the way we are used to them.

The problem with the jigsaw Jane Gray gave us was that despite creating a lot of noise and vibrations, it didn’t jig its blade any more, and what use is a jigsaw that doesn’t jig!? It was fascinating though, this noisy and powerful remainder of a once useful tool. Made me think about how we just take the force of technology for granted. We have all these handy and useful forces at our disposal, trapped in plastic shells and powered by an umbilical cord to the national grid, and we don’t have a clue what goes on inside.

Revealing the insides.

I wanted to show those insides, but still keep the shell. The most fun would have been to first repair the machine, and then house it in a perfectly transparent shell, but since that would have taken up most of my time for the rest of the project, and further risk failing anyway, without having access to specialist chemical engineers with knowledge about transparent polymers, I decided on a simpler solution.

Half transparent, half closed.

I cast a plaster moulding around the jigsaw, then after removing half of its  plastic shell poured clear polyester resin in the mould with the jigsaw still inside. The resin flowed all over the machine parts of the jigsaw, encapsulating them while still keeping them visible. This way the jigsaw became a kind of ghost of its former self, with more of its mystery revealed but without any other function.

Half visible, half solid.

Object no. 13