Foot Hammer Toe Nail prototype from Isla Hansen on Vimeo.
Hand Driver prototype from Isla Hansen on Vimeo.
Extremity Systems / Body Building is a line of toys as tools to celebrate building and playing with body parts in the twenty-first century, especially those very useful parts, like hands, feet, legs, arms, and fingers. This is a work in progress.
The first objects for play and construction I’m working on in this series consist of a custom hand screwdriver, hand wrench, and foot hammer. These can be used with custom ergonomic bolts, nuts, and “toe nails.” These have been 3D modeled, printed in PLA, and are currently being cast in stainless steels (I'm also experimenting with other metals)...
Other toys, tools, and games in the series include: a hand and foot concrete block set, for which jenga-like rules apply to a game of stacking heavy custom bricks and an arm and leg erector set and construction system.
Through the representation of anatomical tools and parts, and through the use of both hand construction processes and automated fabrication, Extremity Systems / Body Building explores the idea of bodies as technologies, and vice versa, simultaneously embracing and critiquing the hubris of Homo Faber, the idea that humans control their environment through the use of tools. Inspired by This Old House, construction games, sports medicine, body augmentation technology, and the notion of self-replicating machines, Extremity Systems / Body Building is a series of toys and games that compares building construction to body modification, dissection, and dismemberment in order to propose an ergonomics for a new era.
Process photos of prototypes and works in progress:
Foot Hammer Toe Nail prototype from Isla Hansen on Vimeo.
Hand Driver prototype from Isla Hansen on Vimeo.