Class of 2014 Senior Art Thesis
Jaime Leiva Cabrera
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Contact Information:
Jaime Leiva Cabrera
jleivaca@hamilton.edu
ARTIST STATEMENT:
In science, we learn that ecosystems are communities of living organisms interacting with their physical environment. We learn that every action an animal takes will affect the rest of the animals, plants, and microbes. If an animal goes extinct, the rest of the ecosystem must adapt to keep their ecosystem to become stable again. Such drastic changes can take hundreds of years and some ecosystems may never reach stability. But what would happen if humans find a solution to extinction?
My project focuses on the re-creation of endangered species as man-made robots that could ideally replace a living organism. Each endangered species comes from a different ecosystem and plays a huge role within the community; without it, the ecosystem will suffer immensely. Using only pencil, I have explored with these re-creations and represented each endangered species as dark, heavy machines. I have replaced each part of the animals’ bodies with pieces of industrial machinery, carefully transforming the anatomy of each animal.
Whether with pencils or actual metal, human intelligence is the key factor for the change the planet needs. This juxtaposition of mechanics in the real world may sound absurd now, but soon humans will attempt the impossible to attempt to save the ecosystems. We all have realized that all these organisms are at risk of extinction, but not all of us have realized that we need to act on this particular issue today.
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