The Work That Has to Be Done
To Get Yourself to Do Anything at All
An interactive audio sculpture visualizing invisible disability
The Work That Has to Be Done to Get Yourself to Do Anything at All, 2023, hacked claw machine with RFID sensor, RFID chips, Arduino Uno, polymer clay, plaster, gouche, found objects
(13 x 10 x 7in)
A mess is a portrait without a body
This sculpture is a depiction of how a mind might manifest in the spaces around it. It is a miniature claw machine containing a sculpture of me, in bed, covered by clutter. It is based off of a picture of me that my mom took, sleeping in a bed filled with shoes, scissors, papers, food, and 20 sheets of temporary tattoos. Participants attempt to excavate the sculpture by moving the objects around with the claw, an intentionally cumbersome interaction that depicts the difficulty someone with ADHD and executive function disorder has in trying to organize and categorize. It addresses the question of “why don’t you just do it” that I so often hear as someone with these disabilities. The answer is “because it’s not that easy.” Also, when they are able to pick it up and move it around, there’s nowhere for it to go. All you can do is rearrange. The barrier between the participant and the task demonstrates the element of invisible work that someone with ADHD has to do to complete these tasks. When your brain doesn’t give you the sauce to just do it, you have to play this horrible, futile little game, where your mind has to convince your body over and over again that the task is even worth doing.
The piece has been shown at the ITP Spring 2023 Show and After the Imagination 2023 at NYC Resistor
The original claw machine is timed for one minute of play once a coin is inserted.
Therefore, the audio stories
he machine is timed for one minute of play, so I made my audios one minute. I reframed the prize hole as a demonstration of the dark pit in which all the things I lose disappear to, because I didn’t want anyone to be able to take anything out. There is no way to clean the room.
The inside of the machine is carpeted, covering the gaping hole a prize is usually dropped through. One small hole remains in the carpet which allows items in the bedroom to slip through if nudged in the right way.
The objects that fall through the crack live in the hole, representing the dark pit that my important things disappear into. I blocked the prize hole with clear acrylic, so
Participants attempt to clean the room, but because nothing can be removed, all they can do is “lose” things.
There is no way to clean the room.
Using Every Part of the Claw Machine
The claw machine itself represents the structures that people with disabilities exist in that are not built for their success, and the ways in which they make it work. Instead of fighting the limitations of the already fabricated claw machine, I appropriated them for my purposes.
The Deep Dark Pit That Swallows Up All Our Things
(ne’er to be seen again)
Inspiration
From my life
In the art world
