Philosophy
Prosthesis is an Art Project
Prosthesis is not being built to fulfill any practical need. It is not a tool, nor a weapon, nor a rehabilitation device. The purpose of Prosthesis is to explore what it means to be human by creating a challenging, completely unprecedented, interactive human-machine experience. Prosthesis is being built to push the age old pursuit of mastering a physical skill in to new territory. Prosthesis is a new sport, a new dance, a new martial art.
Prosthesis reminds us to question whether or not we really want to automate everything we do. It asks us to remember our bodies—remember how it felt when we first rode a bike—when we fist did a cartwheel—when we first landed a jump. It puts the human back in the driver’s seat, and then makes them learn to walk again. If you want to learn more about how this project evolved and why it must be built, please read on.
How it came to be: The Armatron Effect meets Mountain Biking
The specific idea of building a walking machine began to take shape for me many years ago, but the idea of mastering the operation of machinery that has fascinated me since I can remember. My brother calls it “The Armatron Effect”.
Armatron was an absolutely brilliant icon of early eighties electromechanical design from Radio Shack. It had two joysticks and 6 degrees of freedom. That meant that each joystick could move 3 ways: forward/back, left/right and twist. At first this was totally boggling, but after hours and hours of practice, transferring “radioactive waste” from one place to the next, I attained a seamless integration with its controls, and could perform tasks without any idea of what my own hands were doing. I was at one with the machine.
This higher state of man-machine integration can be seen everywhere. The revered crane operator or excavator operator who could “stir your coffee with the bucket”, skateboarders, super-cross riders who dance with their bikes as they soar forty feet into the air, pilots, kite-boarders, musicians, mountain-bikers… the list goes on. For me the most compelling and inspiring examples were the ones that required intense mental focus, extensive practice, and heavy physical conditioning. My own experiences had centered around mountain biking, snowboarding and Capoeira (a Brazilian martial art), but I felt that I needed to take it to the next level. I realized that I needed to create an entirely new experience: I had to build a machine that was physically demanding, challenging to master and completely engrossing to operate. I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, or even have a clear idea of my own motivations. I simply knew I had to build something.
Little did I know I was embarking on a journey that would ultimately lead to Prosthesis: The Anti-Robot.
It started with The Gorilla
The genesis of Prosthesis actually predates the first giant walking machine that I built: The Mondo Spider, which was unveiled in August 2006. As far back as 2005 I began in earnest to bring to life a two legged machine (originally prototyped in Lego circa 1985).
This effort was interrupted by my call to join the Vancouver Junkyard Wars team to build—you guessed it—a walking machine, which ultimately spawned The Mondo Spider.
But I still wanted to build something tall, and dynamic; something with a real gait. This very early rendition depicts the first concept of the machine in its four legged form, then known as The Gorilla. The Gorilla involved much more biomimicry and anthropomorphism than the current design. It had arms with elbows and legs with knees. I was drawn into the trap of trying to identify new thoughts with existing objects or concepts. I set out to build a walking machine that used four limbs and which required a human pilot… and wound up with a familiar jungle beast.
At first I was happy to have a theme. I could make feet that resembled primate fists, a frame similar to a rib cage and leverage all of the prepackaged symbolism of might and power that were embodied in The Gorilla‘s form. My machine would be the 800lb Gorilla of the art world! “I’m building a Gorilla” I’d say when people asked what I was up to. When I helped to found eatART with the Mondo Spider Crew and the Cunninghams in 2007 and the idea of using the piece to promote sustainable energy technology came up, I was considering calling it “The Green Guerilla—a new soldier in the fight for clean energy!” The familiar had co-opted my true intent. My focus had become fixated upon the outward form of The Gorilla, and had stopped taking into consideration the experience of operating it. Its essence was still there, I just hadn’t identified it yet.
Revelation
It was Kate Armstrong (my art guru who’s also my brother’s wife) who helped me to realize the true essence of my own artwork. She was helping me to draft an application for Canada Council for the Arts funding. After about 2 hours of listening to my passionate technical description of how the machine would take the movements of the operator and translate them to the massive, powered limbs of the machine in an exquisite and exhausting dance between human and machine, she asked excitedly “And what about the Gorilla part? Why a gorilla?!”, to which I replied ”Um, I dunno, it was just kinda gonna look like one, so I ran with it.”
Kate was not impressed.
This was a turning point in my development as an artist and in the evolution of the project. Up to this point I had always made art (including traditional ceramic sculpture) from an undistilled instinct; I just made things based upon pure, unadulterated inspiration. Instead, Kate had helped me to realize that this type of raw motivation can be fascinating to explore, but can carry even greater power once refined and properly articulated. Because the grant I was applying for was not adequate to fund the full scope of the project, Kate advised me to distill the essence of the project in to a smaller incarnation that could be built with the available grant funding. I embarked on a mission to reverse-engineer my creative process and find the true essence of the machine.
I ditched the Gorilla moniker (and all of the symbolic baggage that came with it), realizing that the motion and need for skill and focus I had envisioned in operating The Gorilla would be very well encapsulated by a single leg, mounted on top of a hinged tower. The operator would be perched on top of the tower, trying to master the leg’s behavior. I had unearthed the heart of the project: I was building a wearable walking machine and I would call it “The Suit”, but the tower was the first step. Below is an early rendition of the idea.
I didn’t get the grant for the tower project. I attained the official status of “Highly recommended for funding”. Thanks to recent cuts to the arts, however, there was essentially no funding, regardless of the jury’s recommendation. This was nothing more than a hiccup. The process had yielded a new clarity: a new understanding of what I was trying to say and do, and what I was trying to bring to the spectrum of human experience. I was joining the timeless ranks of people who have pursued a higher state through physical skill, mastery and focus. I was seeking “The Zone” and I was going to find it using a 5m tall, 2500kg, human controlled walking machine. And nothing was going to stop me.
