Construction...and deconstruction

The latter half of last week following confirmation of final design was spent in the 3D lab; the holes were drilled for the bottle caps to sit in an suspend the bottle from, recesses were cut to act as slots for the 'shelves' to slide in and out of for easy removal to change placement of bottles and it was all then put together, all in relatively hasslefree manner. Where my calculations for the height of the bottles was correct to determine the height of each shelf, I hadn't accounted for the additional height to the bottle by addition of the valve.

Seeing no other or easier way around it, it was pulled apart, recalculated and painstakingly reconstructed. The best way to test the strength of a join is to try pull it apart, a task which in itself proved difficult. From there, I had to cut new recesses, fill the old ones and attach additional lengths of wood to add extra height, then put it all back together, sand it down and paint it. All made possible with the ever vigilant and helpful 3D lab technicians.

I am pleased with the overall visual aesthetic, especially when finally came time to put the bottles on. The visual impact is exactly what I'd been hoping for from the relatively simplistic design with the repetition of shape and graduations of size. Where I'd been hoping to reflect the organic shape of the bottle in my design, the geometric shape of the structure actually works quite well in contrast to it. It is a presentation of the bottles not unlike that which we're used to (ie shelves and fridges in stores) but it is decontextualized from this location. The labels have been removed from the bottles but it is still instantaneously recognizable as the product it is. I feel the implications of this are a comment on the techniques employed to emforce brand and product awareness as means of boosting sales, in the short and immediate, as well as the long term.

I was very glad to have found my bike pump which makes the process of fine tuning the sound a lot easier than having to get access to the air compressor everytime. I managed to get some sort of tuning done, varying tones across the sizes. In preperation for performance on Thursday, I can now focus back on the performative aspect of it and what sort of sound I hope to create, perhaps in collaboration with someone else.