Throughout my life, I’ve known no greater joy than the joy of discovery. It’s my hypothesis that this intimate, self-rewarding process never gets old, and, in fact, only sweetens as the years go by.
To test this hypothesis, I’ve developed a series of wooden toys that reappropriate the classic waiting room “Rollercoaster” toy – a colorful, kinetic thing that has enraptured millions of youths waiting their turn at the doctor’s office.
Using graphs of open source data as my guide, I bent and painted metal wires so as to visualize trends in childhood obesity, the rise of electronics and (mis)conceptions of the universe.
I made a mock-up of my tangible graphs using armature wire which was easily warped by hand into the shape my data required. Using different radii, I then (slowly) bent thick gauge metal wire to mimick the turns of my armature wire, primed and painted the metal, and added beads.
What excites me most about this project is it's potential for customization. I plan to develop an online platform where customers can import their own data (i.e. the growth of their children over time, income over time, price of groceries, etc.) so that I may create unique data toys for living rooms, play rooms or waiting rooms of their own.
