Surreal Clash

Lucas Held and Henry Harkins
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Lucas 

Surreal Clash: A wearable that recreates the adrenaline of being in a surreal human environment through motion. This wearable creates an abstracted environment that Que can move through fluidly simulating the freedom of his experience in water, using paper and a 3D printed plate attached to his leg.  

Que is a person that pushes the boundaries of the human experience. Humans in nature are not supposed to exist in air, water, and on mountains, but Que exists in all of the above. Naturally he is a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie. But, in addition Que exists in Heidi Latsky's sculpture court dance. Through the motion of dance, Que has found an obscure form of finding adrenaline that still provides him with the same rush and freedom of swimming with whale sharks or jumping out of an airplane. Surreal Clash strives to simulate this connection and clash with the surreal environments that Que exists in by motion through our wearable. The wearable is a piece that connects to Que's leg, with three braces attached to it. Each of these braces has a flexible dowel that allows Que's arms to move through the wearable freely. These dowels hold up laminated paper abstractions of water that we created to replicate challenging human environments. We made these paper pieces to resemble water and also have the shape of a leaf resembling the environment. When the wearable is in use Que can dance passing through the flexible pieces experiencing a rush of adrenaline. 

Henry 

Surreal Clash: A wearable that is created for a man named Que who loves adrenaline and seeks opportunity despite being in a wheelchair. We decided to create a leg attachment that clashes Que's two worlds together; the adrenaline seeking junky and the 9 - 5 office job advocate for people with disabilities. 

Que is the chairman of the dance company and used ambitious, curious, and adventurous to describe himself. He pushes the boundary of what humans can and can not do despite the wheelchair. He was interested when the project offered the idea of finding adrenaline in the city. He said, "sadly every day I go through times square, it feels like I'm in a frogger game". This was one of our main focuses of the project. He also claimed he wanted to clash his two worlds together. The project identified as a seaweed, leafy type structure that stands in front of him. The wearable straps around his leg and uses claps to lock together. because Que is a dance he needs to have mobile movement for his arms. The seaweed structure is made to interacts with Que's mobility because the structure exits right in front of his eyes. The wearable has a spring that allows it to return to its place of origin when it is moved by Que's arms. The idea of the wearable brings an adrenaline rush to New York City. Que normally escapes the city to find adrenaline, from swimming with sharks to skydiving. When he breaks through the seaweed structure he also breaks through the stereotypes of what people with disabilities can and can not do.