Helm of Frustration

I was browsing through my local hardware store looking for inspiration, and I found it. A piece of pipe insulation - like a thin, grey pool noodle. As I picked it up, the other side brushed against a shelf and caused a ruckus.

Well that's quite annoying.

Inspiration struck. Is it possible to make a sculpture that tries to cultivate annoyance? What if I take this frustration and try to concentrate it....

I grabbed a construction helmet, chickenwire and a bunch more of those pool noodles/ pipe insulation pieces. This was gonna be good.

The Helm

It's six pool noodles wired onto a hardhat. The wire is pokey and sharp, and it's stapled to the hat. The staples protrude into your skin if you wear the hat and irritate your scalp.

The six octopus arms are always unbalanced and pull the helmet to one side of your head or another. They reach out into the room around you and knock everything over, hitting everyone around you.

These arms extend about 6 feet, meaning you can never put this hat away into a box or anything, it's always too large to fit.

There's a bell attached to one of the arms that rings whenever it moves and/or stops moving. It's SO ANNOYING.

I also strung a wire loop from one arm, through a can lid and into another arm. Whenever there's a change of elevation between those two arms, the can lid slides on the wire and makes a metallic grating noise.

What Have I Done

This hat was too perfect.

I instantly hated it.

I was thrilled by how successful it was. I hated it deeply It was the most annoying object I have ever born witness too. Like Dr. Frankenstein, I had created a monster.

This was my curse. Having now created it, I was emotionally attached to it, but I was emotionally attached to a hateful thing.

No one wanted this hat. I didn't want it and no one would willingly wear it for longer than a minute. Not even I could bear it.

I tried to keep it in my house in the least used corner of the living room, but my housemate kept expelling it from the living room back to my room. In this manner I passed the months, slave to this odious hat.

The End.

Driven to extremes by this hat, I brought it as 'a fun toy' to a friend's (Doctor Striker's) party. Then, I left it there, a leave behind. He tried to give me the hat back when I visited again, but I couldn't face taking it back. I hated it

After leaving it at his house the second time, I confessed my shame over the hat over text message. It had led me to victimize my friend. I had victimized my friend Doctor Striker.

He took it in good spirit and abandoned the hat in front of the West Oakland Public Library. He came back outside 20 minutes later and the hat was completely shredded. Someone passing had seen the hat and done what I should have had the courage to do a long time ago.

The hat is no more. May it live forever in our hearts