Walking on Air

I decided to mirror Mark Jenkin's work in making body castings. He has always been my favorite installation artists, mostly due to his shock value. My main environment in which i mostly interact is my dorm building. I feel that since i live here and interact and live with these people, this would be the best place and people to choose as my environment and audience.

I'm not sure how Mark makes his castings, but i made the castings of my own legs by wrapping them in ceran wrap, then clear packaging tape. I would cut a slit in the side to slide my leg out, then tape it back together. I made 12 pairs to place in many different places across my dorm. I chose to do the most busy traffic areas such as the stairs, the elevators, and the laundry room. I also did random placements in trash cans and recycling bins.After placing them at night, It was ammusing to see and hear people's reactions the next morning. The reactions are almost an art project in theirselves. Most people found them funny, yet i had a few negative remarks. I could only attach the legs with tape because i could not "vandalize" the building. In retrospect, i feel that being able to see the tape took away from the affectiveness of the project.

Design wise, the legs are the most perfect example of volume. Althought they are an enclosed form, it portrays emptiness for the ceran wrap and tape is clear, suggesting space to be filled inside. The forms also suggest implied line because the audience has to use their imagination to connect the legs to an unseen body and to each other.

I really enjoyed this project. Although it is not my original idea, i really enjoyed it and would like to experiment with this craft further to get even more dramatic reactions from different audiences.