A Gregarious Menagerie
https://youtu.be/xE5PGmdIH3U“A Gregarious Menagerie” is my own version of an elaborate music box, of sorts. This is built around a refurbished antique record player box, with all internal elements replaced with my own constructed parts. When a handle is cranked, an intricate gear system of my own design plays a four note melody upon reclaimed doorbell chimes hidden within. Above the mechanism, locust ballerinas dance and spin atop an old 78 record powered by the same gear system that plays the music. Many of the elements were hand carved from wood, including the record player elements. The locusts are hand carved and painted, each with their own mechanical movements as they spin around on the record. Their wings are made of my own technique of watercolor in cast resin. To bring this project to life, I intensely researched ballerinas and grasshoppers as models, and studied the life cycle of the Desert Locust.
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