BigBots: Ian Ingram

YOU’RE #1

Pittsburgh deserves a hand. It deserves a twelve-foot-tall black and gold hand. A hand that manifests the grip of Pittsburgh’s unique ethereal essence on all of us, its inhabitants. A hand that points out all the good around us. A sports-fan’s foam finger hand that says not “We’re #1” but “You’re #1.” And you’re number one! And you over there, you are also number one.

And, you know, when there’s a hand, there is often a leg, an ear, an eye, and some flesh as well. Where would they be? Perhaps in some places that are well-known and in plain view? Perhaps in some places that are secret and tucked away? Perhaps the pictures above could give some clues? Perhaps the big hand itself is giving you some clues.

Ian Ingram

Ian Ingram is a maker of behavioral sculpture based in Pittsburgh. This year, Ian is conducting a series of experiments investigating the modern super-fecundity of products that meet no evident need, the least clearly useful material artifacts of our culture: the As-Seen-On-TV’s, the brand-imprinted promotional items, the one-use sport spirit tokens and all of their kin. It’s a three-tined fork of an endeavor. Tine 1: Ian is producing his own line of useless products, in many cases amalgamating the useless features of many extant products to achieve new heights of uselessness! Tine 2: Ian is repurposing some of those extant products into behavioral sculptures that attempt to find the true essence of the products’ own desires. And Tine 3 is “YOU’RE #1” which involves giving tangible body parts to the warm, friendly steel and foam beast that lurks in Pittsburgh’s own being: a leg, an ear, a nose, a pound of foamy flesh, and one big, whopping foam-finger hand.

Ian is currently the Artist-In-Residence in the Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) Lab at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. Ian is also very fond of animals and hopes urban pigeons will find a friend in this giant foam hand.

http://www.ingramclockworks.com