Monley, Geo – Daemon Reveal

Story of the Box

The Title

The little head was probably meant to be a dog, but I saw it as a creature arising from the deep. Initially, the grid and the spheres were decorative elements to complement the head. But they could be eyeballs or daemon seed or eggs intimately related to the daemon in the middle. Maybe the space grid is the honeycomb of a beehive; the spheres are the larvae and the daemon the queen bee. This is her gender-reveal party.

Iris

The cardboard iris is a ½ scale prototype of a motorized version used in a time machine.

Iris Guides

The iris needed guides to keep it in place while turning. The components are very delicate and would just come apart unless they were held in place. The 4 rectangular corner blocks have arcs cut into them to match the circumference of the iris. I considered trimming them flush with the outside of the box but decided they looked cool untrimmed. The bottom ring of the iris is attached to the blocks so the whole mechanism could be removed as needed.

Daemon

I found the little Daemon in one of those little free art galleries that have been popping up on sidewalks. I had already repainted him but was saving he/she for who-knows-what project. It turned out it was for this project. I used a toilet paper tube give him/her a neck and to position him/her in the box (BTW “Who Gives a Crap” toilet paper rolls are the sturdiest brand). The gray gear-shaped collar is a prototype gear left over from the motorized iris mentioned above.

Grid

The grid is made of bamboo skewers and hot melt glue. It was salvaged from another project I was working on, a mock-up of an octet-truss canopy frame.

Spheres

I keep hundreds of ping pong balls on hand for modelling purposes. These ping pong balls happed to be orange. I hot glued them to wooden dowels, painted them, and then hot glued them into the frame.

Lever

It took several tries to get this right. I first attached a block to the outer iris wheel. I realized that people could damage the mechanism by pushing it too far in either direction. So, I extended the block with the arm that would bump into two end-stop dowels. Initially I had decorative green knobs on top of the end stops and the arm was just painted red without the gold ball on it. When I had people try opening it, they invariably tried to move the fixed, decorative green balls instead of the red arm. So off came the green balls and on went the gold ball. Even then, people would try to twist the gold ball or push it up and down instead of sliding it. I was worried that as an interactive display, it would get damaged. Even though I did not like the look of the protective arc, I added it to limit how the lever could be pushed and to clearly show the direction of motion.