I’ve designed some Robot sculptures, plushes and T-shirts that will be featured at Toy de Jour in Chicago this month with an opening reception on Thursday July 10 from 6–9pm.
Toy de Jour opened this year in Logan Square and they feature a different artist every month in their store that provides “vintage, toys, arts & farts.” I’m not a big fan of farts but somehow they make it work.
Robots by Kendall Bruns
July 2014 at Toy de Jour
2064 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 217-9089
Opening Reception: Thu, July 10 from 6–9pm
Store Hours: Tue–Fri 11am–7pm, Sat–Sun 12–5pm
While actual robots are becoming more common in our lives and used for practical tasks like surgery and manufacturing, I still find myself more interested in fictitious robots than any that I’ve encountered in the real world. From my experience, the idea of a robot is even better than the real thing.
The original idea behind robots was that humans would create humanoid machines to do the work that we didn’t feel like doing ourselves but the most compelling stories that involve reboots don’t really revolve around that aspect. Instead, they’re about what makes robots and humans different from each other, the scary power of mechanical beings, concepts of self-aware super intelligence, and robots with quirky personality. Sometimes robots just look cool and we’re not really sure why we like them, but we do and we want to keep creating them.
I decided to challenge myself to create my own iconic representation of a robot using simple shapes—primarily the hexagon, due to it’s association with balance, strength, bolts and tools.
Kendall Bruns 