Best Mate - MisFormer from the Role Models Collection

In Scott Campbell’s studio in Shinjuku are more than a thousand dismantled TransFormers in various states of disrepair. Starting his sculpture series in 1999, the Australian artist re-arranges parts of perfectly functional TransFormers to extremely dis-functional MisFormers. PingMag visited Scott in his studio where he assembles, plans and tweaks those precious sculptures - to find out why.

written by Uleshka

Scott, you had your first show with your MisFormers in 2002 and things have developed very well from there. The right people get attracted to your art, countless exhibitions (“Relationships replayed again and again across an internal landscape” at the QUT art museum, Australia closed last week) and you sell most of your pieces.

MisFormers exhibition, 2002

What is your intention behind building those MisFormers?

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.

TransFormers Cybertron Deluxe Class figure: BLURR - a TransFormer from the American Hasbro website

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.

Besides all that, I like the complexity of the mythology and the internationality of the visual language of the TransFormers as a material. I love the way they feel and the colour as well as the sound they make when they shift from one pose to another (Here is a little demo movie.)



big MisFormer still to be tested in Scott’s studio



same one in different action



MisFormer details



MisFormer details

I think your work looks very stylish, due to their components and the way you arrange those shapes! Are esthetics more important than meaning, or do they go hand in hand?

Primarily, the MisFormers are Visual Art objects. I could write an essay or a book about the same ideas and the meaning would still be communicated. What I love about visual art is that a whole chapter of ideas can be communicated instantly. I love the way that when I first look at an artwork, a whole flood of new thoughts can enter my mind at once.

MisFormer: “…can work it out using a motivational model…” Hiroshima, 2003

The works in the MisFormers series are simultaneously figurative, abstract and symbolic. Ugly symbols just don’t work so I make the objects look attractive to the human eye and easily acquirable by the general psyche.

Your sculptures are interactive works, meaning, they allow the visitor to touch and “misform” them constantly. How do most viewers react?

I had always felt isolated by the arguably passive role of the art viewer. By using TransFormers as a medium I could allow for a final percentage of the composition to be created by the person engaging with the work. For some people the taboo of touching anything in a gallery or museum is initially hard to break but, after they get over their initial concern, most viewers become captivated.

visitors of the recent “Relationships replayed again and again across an internal landscape” exhibition trying out and re-arranging MisFormers

Do you think that the understanding of your art changes once people are allowed to touch and mis-form those pieces themselves?

In addition to their esthetic communication I also make the movement of each piece fit the concept behind it. (Here is a little movie of how Scott misforms his sculpture)

If the particular work is about anger then perhaps its movement will be more explosive. If it is about cowardice then perhaps it will be more restricted. So, the way the work feels as it moves also communicates something.

I think people get more of an understanding of themselves when they reform one of the works because they get a visual representation of how they have reacted to that particular symbol. At the Role Models Exhibition in 2004, people’s different approaches to reforming works like “Dad” and “Mum” were extremely diverse.

Role Models Exhibition: Mum



Role Models Exhibition: Dad



Role Models Exhibition: Dad

I am fascinated by how the meaning gets revealed knowing the central theme of your exihitions and the specific title of each body of work. Stories spring to mind, symbolism, creating new shapes and individual meaning by how you interact with those MisFormers.



Role Models Exhibition: Runs in the family



Role Models Exhibition: Runs in the family

I find, that it all worked especially well in your Landscapes & Botanicals collection you made between 2004 and 2005: About the movement of plants from one country to another, with the migration of people and cultural values.

Landscapes & Botanicals collection: Japanese Wallflower, Soft Club, Shibuya, Tokyo, New Years Eve 2004 (one of the works created in Japan, a giant flower which folds and unfolds)

Can you tell us about your story behind one of the pieces, let’s say: “Three month Rice and Coca-Cola scarecrow”?

When I was in Indonesia, I would often walk past this rice paddy with lots of Coca-Cola advertising. I thought that was a pretty aggressive move from the marketing department until I realized the banners were mostly upside down. On chatting to the farmer, it transpired that the flapping red banners were the best to keep the birds from eating the soon to be harvested rice. In the past, rice was harvested every five months and people observed the spiritual practices to thank the rice goddess, Dewi Sri, according to this time frame. A number of new, much faster growing varieties of rice, particularily the IR36, have been introduced in Bali and so the traditional rhythm of spiritual observances no longer fits. Many songs and rituals have died out as a result.

This was a landscape where both a foreign plant and a foreign culture had changed the inner life of a society.

Landscapes & Botanicals collection: Three month rice and Coca-Cola scarecrow, Ubud, Bali, 2004

All the works in the Landscapes & Botanicals collection were made in such places where the plants and cultures interacted in dysfunctional ways.

Actually, I awoke one morning to find another farmer had gone through my studio garbage and used all my discarded TransFormer packaging to make scarecrows for his field. The MisFormers project had become an ironic example of the thing it was observing.

HaHa! Perfect ending! For another of your exhibitions, MisFormers in 2002, you also created un-functional manuals. What was the purpose of those?

They were made to illustrate the theme of communication breakdown. Many of the sculptures in the show had matching illustration manuals which were remodeled to become more of a confusing guide. They would not help to decipher the object although it looked like they could.

MisFormer manuals: a very confusing guide made out of original manual cut-outs

They look very handmade to me. How did you create them?

I took the separate instructions from each TransFormer I used in the resulting sculpture and cut and recombined them with a scalpel and glue. They were very intricate and multilayered, weaving in and out of themselves. Although I am sure Photoshop would have been faster, I wasn’t interested in making a secondary object but rather making an assemblage from the real TransFormers product instructions. Being consistent with the medium was important.

Some people bought them as a set with their MisFormer, others bought them individually.

That must have taken forever…



Scott uses all sorts of TransFormers: from very very small



…to pretty chunky big

Out of how many TransFormers is each MisFormer sculpture made?

This is extremely variable and can be anywhere between two and fourty. Sometimes parts from fifteen or twenty different TransFormers go into one small sculpture because I might need just that little piece of green that I can only find on that arm on that TransFormer.

carefully selected parts screwed together making the final object

Off comes the arm, off comes the specific part and then one more whole TransFormer has contributed to the work. That armless TransFormer might sit in a pile for six months before it’s foot has the perfect shape to complete the rhythm of another totally different work. At other times I want a less fractured composition so I use many of the parts from just three or four TransFormers to create a more seamless object.



a rather seamless object



Patron - another MisFormer using only a few different TransFormer pieces

How long does it take you to make one?

Days, weeks, a year? It just depends on the complexity of the piece and the availability of the parts I need. I’m really neurotic about them being correct in every way.

screws, pinches and parts

lots of little bits to choose from

And about how many pieces have you completed already?

About 180 to 200 sculptures.

Oh my god! You are a nonstop-worker! Don’t you meet collectors who think you are crazy to take expensive, rare TransFormers apart?

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. The passion people have for these toys is astonishing and adds to the conceptual value of the medium itself.

Doanld Friend and Cherry Blossom (Prunus serrulata), Neka art museum, Ubud, Bali (2004)

How much would one cost? Let’s say - Doanld Friend and Cherry Blossom for example?

Around 100,000 Yen.

And what kind of people buy your art?

Many kinds of people have bought the pieces over the years. Private collectors, Museums and other artists. The reasons they buy them are as diverse and complex as the works they buy.

I heard that Ex-Girl-Friend was the first one sold in your Role Models exhibition. Correct?

Yeah! She was snapped up in mere minutes! I think if I had made a whole show just about that theme I would have sold everything in mere minutes! She was beautiful in a scary, hateful kind of way.

MisFormer from the Role Models Collection: Ex-Girl-Friend

Are you happy about selling, or do you hang on to them a little?

Because the works are destined to be handled in the future, I submit them to rigorous play testing before they leave the studio. After that I like to keep them around for a few months to enjoy them myself (Link!) and also to see how people who visit the studio react to the works. Once they go into an exhibition I have an emotional connection to them but am elated when someone wants to place them in their collections. That’s when my social role feels completely fulfilled.

Scott Campbell in his studio

Anything you would like to add?

These works have no moral value. They are observations and documentations. Some of the subjects are not pretty or particularly nice but I really don’t have any interest in telling people what is right or wrong, good or bad. The MisFormers series was conceived and created as a means to an end, not an end in itself. People bring their own morality with them to attach to the works as they see fit.

Thank you so much, Scott! I feel honored, that you allowed PingMag to finally be the first online medium to publish your work (I complained about that earlier here). Good luck also for all your other projects in the future (I might write about those in another article….) and yes - if there are any lovely strangers out there who feel like contributing their unused TransFormers, please let us know in the comments! Thank you!!!