ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Between SOFT&FURRY [tagged], the Manifest Hope Project and day jobs, the Cypher13 crew keeps a tight schedule. Todd “TeeBee” Berger took a few minutes to send me some snaps of what they’re working on for Manifest Hope. Their contribution is a collaborative effort between Todd, Alex Henry, Lucian Foehr, Kristian Kluver and Kurt Barbee. The premise behind the piece is to present the Bill of Rights in a new context. As opposed to creating an image of Obama, or just saying “hope” or “change,” they wanted to bring it back to basics and prompt some deeper thinking about what it means to be an American. Says Todd: “The rights outlined in those first ten amendments make America and being American rad!!! There rights that no one in any other country has in total…”

With the piece, the aim is to create some tension, so they designed it such that the viewer has to interact with it. Viewers have to climb the steps to get to the top of the podium where there will be a 3-inch thick document, made of solid maple, painted high-gloss automotive white with the first ten amendments laser-etched into it. They began a little less than three weeks ago by refreshing themselves on he nuances of history behind the Bill of Rights. Next, they recontextualized and reformatted the ten amendments.  The type is set in in a combination of Lubalin and Avant Garde fonts by Herb Lubalin with some additional Cypher13 iconography. The construction process required virtual efforts like a sketchUp file, as well as tangible materials like glass, mdf, medex, apple-plywood, nails and screws, a few types of adhesive, lots of bondo, Krylon and a catalyzed urethane to finish. Once the construction was complete, Kristian layed down 3-4 coats of urethane to provide a “candied” finish. Today, the Cypher13 guys are working with Kurt to laser etch the document. Tomorrow, the final piece is off to the gallery taking care not to “eff it up!” Not sure 2D pics will do this complicated work the justice it deserves so hopefully plenty of peeps go check it out at the Democratic National Convention and maybe we’ll see some video…