aka Saturn Return my Tetherball

Infinite Tetherball is a light piece that explores movement and trickery into a classic playground game. 

The original concept was a metaphor for one’s astrological Saturn Return, where you can go hard with life, but Saturn will only hit you right back. 

I wanted to explore how to create the rings of Saturn and combine play, but also trickery. The tetherball is attached to a bearing, which is attached to the top of a pole. When the participant hits the ball, instead of wrapping around the pole, it keeps going. When the rope is lit, and if it’s going fast enough, the light trails will create the rings of Saturn. 

In this game, no one can really win, and there is no ending! But people enjoy trying to make it wrap around the pole anyways.

To make this piece, I machined a holder for the bearing in order to attach the tetherball rope, and also designed how a led strip would be installed into a rope, while also being reliably able to be powered 

I’ve had a lot of trouble with this piece. It seems almost like bad luck - it’s never had a successful install. I would like to complete the project, and get it all working into one beautiful infinite tetherball, but that will have to be a 2025 project.