Nathalia Padilla

I’m working with the sensors consistently now.

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Push. Pull. Just basic interactions for now.

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It feels small, almost too simple compared to everything I was trying to build before. But at the same time, it feels like a foundation. Like this is actually closer to what I was asking in the beginning.

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I’m trying not to rush it.

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It’s slower now. But not in the same frustrating way as before.

 

More like I’m actually paying attention—letting the system respond instead of forcing it to behave a certain way.

 

Or at least trying to.

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​I’m at FilmGate Interactive Festival for three days.

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Being here shifts something.

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I’m seeing other people working with interaction, systems, bodies, technology—but in ways I hadn’t considered. It pulls me out of my own loop a bit.

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I’m talking to people, explaining the project out loud again, but it lands differently here.

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It makes me realize this doesn’t exist in isolation.

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And maybe the answer isn’t just fixing what broke—but rethinking what this needs to be.

 

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I’m realizing the structure isn’t holding.

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Pieces inside the robot are shrinking, bending under their own weight. It’s not just one—it’s multiple points in the system.

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So it’s not a mistake. It’s the design.

And that’s hard to sit with.

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I keep looking at it, like maybe there’s a workaround I’m missing.

 

But I already know.

Something has to change.

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The sensors arrive.

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This feels like a shift immediately.

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It’s not about structure anymore. Not about holding weight or making things fit together. It’s about input. Response.

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I start testing them right away. Fourteen sensors. I don’t fully understand them yet, but I’m figuring it out by doing.

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Training them. Watching how my body translates into signals.

 

This feels closer to the question I started with.

 

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I move everything into my studio.

I need distance from the incubator, from the wiring, from the loop I’ve been stuck in.

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But it creates new problems.

Now every time something breaks—and things are breaking—I have to go back just to reprint. It slows everything down.

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I keep asking myself if what I’m building can actually sustain itself.

Right now, it doesn’t feel like it can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m presenting the project to people from Florida International University and the Ratcliffe Foundation.

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Which feels strange because internally I feel stuck.

But I’m still explaining it, walking through it, speaking about it like it’s moving forward.

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And maybe it is.

Just not in a clean way.

 

Standing there, I realize something—this doesn’t need to be finished to exist. It doesn’t need to be resolved to have meaning.

 

That thought stays with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something breaks.

And it’s small, but it shifts everything.

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Then I hit the wiring.

Two motors. That’s it. But I don’t really know how to do this. Not fully.

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I try to figure it out, but I can feel the gap in what I know.

And it’s frustrating because this isn’t conceptual anymore. This either works or it doesn’t.

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Right now—it doesn’t.

Everything slows down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I start assembling the robot.

For a moment, it all makes sense.

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I can see where it’s going. The pieces are coming together into something larger and it actually feels like it’s working.

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I feel confident.

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Which makes me question it a little.

Because I don’t know if that confidence is real or just temporary.

 

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There are so many pieces now.

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Around 150, and I’m still cleaning, organizing, trying to keep track of everything.

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It stops feeling like individual objects and more like accumulation.

At the same time, I’m balancing classes and being a grad assistant.

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It’s a lot.

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There’s this pressure to keep going, like I can’t slow down. But I’m not even sure yet what I’m fully building toward.

 

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I have around 20 pieces that need to be cleaned.

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Each one comes out with supports that I have to break off by hand. It’s repetitive, kind of exhausting.

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But also—I can’t ignore how physical it is.

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I’m breaking, pulling, shaping each piece myself.

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I go into the incubator at 7 PM and stay until 10:30 just doing this.

There’s something about this stage that feels important. This moment where something digital becomes something I have to physically deal with.

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The next day I photograph them in a lightbox.

They look different there.

 

More intentional. More like objects.

 

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I start printing.

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Immediately something feels off. The filament chips. The color doesn’t feel right. I can’t tell if it’s technical or just me.

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I keep going anyway.

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By the 30th I’m running multiple printers—four at one point—just moving between them, restarting prints, adjusting things.

It becomes constant. No real pause.

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With Professor Jacek’s help, I’m able to keep things going even when I’m not there.

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Boxes start filling up.

It looks like progress.

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But I still don’t know if any of this is actually going to hold together.

 

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I’m trying to make a logo.

It doesn’t feel right.

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I can already tell I’m not going to keep it. It feels too fixed for something that isn’t fully understood yet.

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But while I’m working on it, this phrase keeps coming up:

reconstruction of gesture

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I don’t fully understand it, but it feels more accurate than anything visual I’m making.

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Am I rebuilding something?
Or just trying to understand what’s changing?

 

The logo fades.

The phrase stays.

 

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There’s no name for this.

I don’t even know if it’s a project yet.

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It’s just an idea that won’t leave.

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What happens when the body can’t do what it used to do?

After the nerve damage, painting feels different. Not gone—just not automatic. I have to think about movements that used to just happen.

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So then what is gesture, if it’s not reliable?

And if it’s not reliable… can it exist somewhere else?

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I keep thinking about machines. Not replacing the body—that feels wrong. But maybe holding something. Or translating it.

 

But then—is it still mine?

I don’t know.

 

I just know this is starting from the body.

And from something not working the way it used to.