The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun is a gun to end all wars. With bullets filled with woman’s tears, it completely deflates the desire for violence and is the first gun created for peace.  The Defensive Artists Research Project Agency http://www.darpa.us  features artworks and strategies for peace and nonviolence.

The Womans Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo

A woman’s tears contain chemical substances and when a man sniffs these tears they diminish testosterone by 13%, therefore, a woman’s tears possess chemical signals used to biologically manipulate men, which make tears an evolutionary strategy for survival.

Neurobiologist Noam Sobel at the Weizmann Institute of Science has peered into subjects’ brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging while only sniffing the tears.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
A boy tries out The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer. When you pull the trigger on this gun it drips tears into a bucket below via a peristaltic pump.

When men sniff the tears, their breathing rates, skin temperature, and testosterone levels sank and as high levels of testosterone can be associated with increased possibilities for aggression this is a significant discovery and means of reducing violence.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman’s tears, by Ken Rinaldo, Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

While some animals use scents and sprays to communicate chemically, such as mice, which use proteins to signal, it was not formerly known that humans expressed chemically with their tears.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo 2015 in Hopkins Hall, Columbus, Ohio, 2015

They have found that the region of the brain that is generally active and lights up when an individual is aroused, such as the fusiform gyrus and hypothalamus, was diminished when men were exposed to the woman’s tears.

When thinking about this it became apparent to me that tears are an ancient biological weapon and they also represent an actual lesson for non-violent deflationary ways of thinking about conflict resolution and reducing aggression. They may strangely allow the creation of an actual gun of peace.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer being explained by Trademark Gunderson

The woman’s tears machine gun may be the safest gun on the planet as all it can do, is a cry for lost loved ones lost to war and gun violence, though it can also impact the dialogue surrounding the use of guns to resolve a conflict.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

There are many different kinds of tears. Crying and weeping tears increase lacrimation because of intense emotional stress, anger, happiness, suffering, mourning, or physical pain. Emotional tears are often accompanied by reddening of the face, convulsive breathing, and at times spasms of the upper body.

Tears brought about by emotion have a different chemical make-up than those for lubrication or cleaning. Emotional tears contain more protein-based hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and Leu-enkephalin (a natural painkiller) than basal or reflex tears.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

The limbic system is involved in producing basic emotional drives, such as anger, fear, etc. The limbic system, specifically the hypothalamus, also has a degree of control over the autonomic system. The parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system controls the lacrimal glands via the neurotransmitter acetylcholine through the nicotinic and muscarinic receptors.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

When these receptors are activated, the lacrimal gland is stimulated to produce tears.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer
The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

To complete this work, I will collect actual tears from a woman who has lost loved ones to gun violence. This work is fraught with challenges, as managing the real tears will be difficult and present much emotional pain to those who have lost loved ones to gun violence.

I also hope this work will allow a broader audience to dialogue about the use of guns and violence as a means of resolving conflict in both primordial and modern weapons.

The Woman's Tears Machine Gun bullet holding Woman's tears pink gun bullets
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo front view at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

For me, the work points to a primordial being, “human,” a layered animal with many ancient drives and communication abilities. The scent is an ancient activator of group action, sometimes surrounding fear or anger. Still, we understand that while anger and fear are great evolutionary strategies for group survival, they become more dangerous when powerful weapons are involved, especially with hair triggers.

The Womans Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo front view at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer
The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun by Ken Rinaldo front view at Aberdeen Pavilion at Maker Faire Ottawa 2015 for the Happy Machine curated by Remco Volmer

Can we look beyond violence as a means of resolving conflict? I think we can recognize violence as an ancient and outmoded human drive that does not create solutions, though it does sew anger and vengeful thinking.

It is interesting that human sweat is also a primordial communications device and suggests that information in people’s sweat helped ancient humans better understand their surroundings.

In our modern world, where we mask and cover up sweating by adding perfumes etc., we often hide our natural smells and, perhaps, mask actual emotional states.

Is the same true of human tears?

A British physician BA McSwiney was focused on the chemical composition of human perspiration. Psychologists and psychiatrists from the State University of New York extracted sweat from the t­shirts of 64 donors. Part of the research was that half of the donors jumped out of an airplane for the first time, while the other half exercised hard. People who sniffed the sweat of scared skydivers became aroused in response to angry faces and neutral and ambiguous ones. Psychologists refer to it as vigilance.

Another experiment conducted by German psychologists and neuroscientists found that sweat from anxious men (who participated in a high ropes course) caused women to make riskier decisions – after spending more time deliberating on their choices – in a computer game designed to assess risk­taking behaviors.”

This work resides at http://www.darpa.us, the defensive artist’s research project agency, and will feature this work and artists working for peace.

Tears of sadness
Tears of sadness

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

REVOLTELLA MUSEUM   Trieste, Italy, Sept 2016
Art / Science / Technology / The Robotics video presentation of my works Woman’s Tears Machne Gun, invited by Maria Campitelli

MUSEU NACIONAL DE HISTORIA, Lisbon Portugal November 2016
The New Arts Festival presents, The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun video and premiere print of Gun on paper invited by Antonio Cerveira Pinto

GALLERY 152, Hopkins Hall, The Ohio State University                                                         Columbus, Ohio, 2016
US premiere of The Woman’s Tears Machine Gun

THE ABERDEEN PAVILION, Ottawa, Canada, November 6 & 7, 2015
Maker Faire, Ottawa, Canada, World Wide Premiere of the Woman’s Tears Machine Gun in the Happy Machine, invited and commissioned by Remco Volmer.

CREDITS

Design, concept, 3D modeling, and direction: Ken Rinaldo
Assistant: Trademark Gunderson
3D rapid prototyping v1: Alex Smith
Construction: Ken Rinaldo & Trademark Gunderson
Hardware: the Peristaltic pump is activated by rewired gun.
Raspberry Pi drives video loop.
Software: Trademark Gunderson

HARDWARE/TECHNIQUE

Software: Cinema 4D R15
Arduino microcontroller &  servo motors with pull string mechanics.
Prototypes were built on a Maker Bot II

Lessons on building and programming interactive robots.

BIO Requirements

Water or woman’s tears.

SHOW DIMENSIONS

This work can be displayed in a slightly darkened room or on the wall. It can also be hung in free space as in the animation above with the mount.

KEYWORDS

3D modeling, interactive, bio art, robots, non-violence