Transformers

I was surprised how much my inner nine-year-old boy (er, I'm a silver-haired fiftysomething soccer mom) enjoyed the Transformers movie. It's big, dumb, colorful, loud, goodnatured fun. It was really hard the next day or two to look at any car or truck on the street without expecting it to suddenly transform.

The prop of the Allspark artifact that the warring Transformers fought over sold on Ebay for $20,100 . It was down from a high of $40,000 a couple of days before the closing, presumably some bad bids pushing it up at one point. Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro used in the movie, started off surprisingly far behind the Allspark in the beginning bidding, but finally ended up at $40,100. All proceeds went to Fisher House Foundation. Fisher House supplies lodging at major military and VA medical centers, so that military family members have a place to stay when visiting ill or injured loved ones.

PingMag visited the studio of Transformer deconstructor Scott Campbell. Campbell's Misformers are made from pieces of over a thousand working Transformers, and turned into Transformer sculptures that not functional in the same way anymore, but still can serve as art.

"TransFormers are shining examples of functionality. They transform from useful machines into even greater robots capable of god like feats. As a model for the transition from a boy to a man, a TransFormer is a pretty tough act to follow. The MisFormers series brings some balance to the idea and represents the multitude of humans and social realities stuck somewhere in the middle. No longer a car but not quite becoming the world saving robot either.

The MisFormers Project started as a brief glance at the inability of many industrialized societies to raise socially functional male adults. However, it quickly developed to act as a platform to explore a much wider range of issues related to social dynamics."

When asked if he's met Transformers collectors, Campbell says, "Yeah, I have had some interesting and educational conversations with some real maniacs. I nearly shit at my first show when I heard what one Transformer I had carved up was worth."

ARTICLE: Scott Campbell: Misforming Transformers