Eyewitness
2022
Acrylic fur, polyfill, camera lenses
50cm x 40cm x 40cm
Eyewitness was made by tracing the surface of PARO, a zoomorphic care robot used to care for and gently watch over patients with dementia. Holding PARO and feeling out the seamlines of its fur casing, I made a replica pattern using traditional toy making techniques. I then disrupted the cute-realism of PARO’s design by exaggerating and distorting its form through pattern alteration and overstuffing, making the sculpture firmer, more rotund, in a distortion of life. PARO’s concealed cameras are displaced, and are instead inserted into the sculpture’s eye sockets, drawing attention to the hidden technology that animates its sentience.