wrap up contents of a skip individually

Skip Cam #1

These camera's will be sent to skip companies who have agreed to photograph the contents of there skips for me. Ideally I would like to have an up to date image of every skip in use linked to a mapping system. This would provide people with a great material resource. But this is a trial run to see what it turns up (pictures will follow when the camera's are returned). Its interesting to map the location of the skips with their content; somethings might be commonly thrown away in one part of the country (say London) that is in short supply elsewhere (Chester perhaps).

Posts to add:

Boxed in storage chair/furniture
Futures - Trends, letters to the future,
Moulded chair from imprints or negative imprints of obsolete objects
make objects that reveals the making process or technology tree step by step. {recipes}
Skip as the object to tell the story of my Contextual report
Sgare meter - Mark Dion style take a square meter and analyse and cataloge it. Carpet, Skip, workshop floor?
Mark Dion entry
Rotation moulded starch plastic
Stool in a jar (obsolete objects in giant jars)
Cameras sent to skip sites
skip website
skip add-ons: light, tags and string, RIDF tags
X-ray technology

how much land does it take to make potato starch?

Objects revealing making process

These objects show a certain transparency, thoughI'm more interested in objects that show the actual making process in their final outcome. A build up of paint drips, snapping wood, joints, joins between moulds, screw holes, nails etc.

Why? Because i am interested in retaining within an object the knowledge that is required to make it. This might be for 'future proofing', so we always build upon what came before rather than repeat it.

So many designs are made from components gathered from all corners of the world. I wonder, is there anyone one individual who knows how to make any of the objects we use? For example, is there one person who could single handedly make this laptop I'm typing on?

James Lovelock proposes that we should create a book that contains all the knowledge necessary to form our current civilisation. From fire to breeding domestic livestock to modern genetics.

Hotdogs outlive HDD

‘In anthropological studies of the Fresh Kills landfill site in New York, hotdogs, corncobs and news papers that were 25 years old were still in recognisable form, and the news papers were readable.’
(page 8, Emotionally Durable Design, [from: Association of science-Technology Center, quoted from www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/fkl.htm]

We seem to be in a stage of extending the life of perishable items such as Hotdogs, News papers and apples. And not being able to sustain items we rely on for backup in the future. It would be interesting to test how long some perishable items last up against items we consider to be more permanent. It could also be a way of bringing relativity into my work.

Living Design Fossils

Key today                                   Roman key

'[A] Living fossil is an informal term for any living species (or clade) of organism which seems to be the same as a species otherwise only known from fossils and has no close living relatives. These species have all survived major extinction events, and generally retain low taxonomic diversities'

Lets take the example of a key for now (though I do see the errors in the objects analyses) We have 'fossils' of keys from many periods of time (after 400bc). 'It is generally acknowledged that keys and locks were invented around 400 BC - probably by the Greeks.' [nokey.com/ankeymus.html]) The keys we use today would recognisable to the Greeks who first invented them. It is a design that has 'survived major extinction events' (as of this moment there isn't a reliable alternative, swipe cards are a good example of this) and has little if any close living relatives. What other Living Design Fossils surround us?

Orphaned Websites

'It's likely the abandoned project of someone whose enthusiasms led them to new activities, leaving an orphaned website to live in perpetuity like a once carefully tended garden that slowly succumbs to weeds without completely losing its original form.'
[http://andrewindeutschland.blogspot.com/2007/06/on-internet-nobody-knows-youre-closed.html]

An orphaned web-site is one that has no links to it on the web. It can also have no search terms linked to it, making it impossible to find without typing in the exact URL. Within a network like the World Wide Web, not being linked in this way makes it a virtual waste that consumes a URL and space. Are these sites the fossils of the web? Or perhaps the contents of virtual skips, on the brink of being deleted unless someone stumbles across and retrieves it. Linking it back into a web of use and desire.

How do you find orphaned web-sites? Is there a programme or search engine that can? If so, could it be liked to a skip lorry or skip raider?

alexa.com allows you to enter a URL and in most cases tells you the number and addresses of sites that link to that address.

'It was on the UCLA campus in 1969 that the first Internet connection was established... The ARPANET evolved into the Internet in the 1980s and was discovered by the commercial world toward the end of that decade. Originally conceived and built by — and for — the scientific research community, it is dominated today by the commercial sector.'
[http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/stories/netis30.htm]

What site is the oldest existing website? (which has the oldest 'last updated' date) Do any exist in there original form from the 1980's? or is old on the Internet 2002? How short has the gap between now and the past become. When you take a piece of Apple hardware thats two years old to their store. They say they won't touch it because 'it's vintage'.

Product Shells

Fossils

I asked the class to each bring in an object of our time. They then printed it into clay without me seeing the object. I made plaster casts to form these fossils (in appearance at least) that you see above. What would a future civilization make of them? It’s easy for me to recognize all the objects. How could I make myself read them from a future perspective?

Julia Lohmann

liver Bishop-Young

brief#1

How revealing will the fossils of our technology be?
‘Never has there been a time of such drastic and irreversible information loss… Science historians can read Galileo’s technical correspondents from the 1590’s but not Marvin Minsky’s from the 1960’s… Digital storage is easy; digital preservation is hard.’
page 84, The Clock of the Long Now

Is our re-use of objects in design a conservation (library) of the past; or, is it changing the format of the information/object, requiring a program to access that information?
Digital media puts us into a false sense of security. It potentially has the power to store all current and future information. Historians of one thousand years henceforth would simply search through a pin-head size USB drive, containing all information of a previous decade; and retrieve any piece of information, image, video, diary, calendar, receipt, NHS record, blog, game etc. Perhaps Apple’s Time Machine will be all a researcher needs. But the truth is, we are loosing data and relying on media with a very short life and temperamental nature that doesn’t age gracefully to store the rest. Instead, it, like its system of on’s and off’s (1’s and 0’s) either works or doesn’t work. Even when it works, technology is such, that formats become out of date. DVD, CD, Zip disks, Floppy disks, Cassettes, what power will our children posses to decipher them, what will be left to decipher?
Tejo Remy, committee design… have all produced work by re-appropriating materials and objects that already exist. The new forms often comment on the negative (often damaging) effect the objects have on our environment. I am intrigued by the impact sustainable design of this kind has upon designs evolution.

We need an evolution, not a revolution to put right the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Evolution suggests incremental progress, backed up with a detailed library of successful processes that came before. But will they exist? Will our fossils contain the information vital to prevent us causing our own destruction a second time?

‘Burning libraries is a profound form of murder, or if self-inflicted, suicide. It does to cultural continuity- and hence safety- what destroying species and habitats does to nature’s continuity, and hence safety. Burning the Amazon rain forest burns the worlds richest library of species. The accumulated past is life’s best resource for innovation. Revolutions cut of the past. Evolution shamelessly, lazily repurposes the past. Reinventing beats inventing nearly every time.’
page 75, The Clock of the Long Now


In short I aim to:
• Continue my exploration of objects as design tools. One object through many life’s
• Fossilize technology. What will fossils of hardware and software be?
• Incorporate information (such as the making process) into objects
• Excavate the meaning of ‘fossil’.
• What are our design libraries? Landfill?


This brief is heavily influenced by the book, The Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand. I hope to refine it through both experimentation and literary research.

wiki

OjectAsTool #2 KettleLimescale

When a kettle is discarded it may still fully function. Limescale build-up can put people off using it and, with the incredibly cheap price of electric kettles, it seems easier to buy a new one than clean it. What if we could encourage limescale to grow, shaped into a new object around a custom formed heating element? As the kettle dies in the eye of the user they are left with a new object. Or they brake off the limescale cup that has grown inside and, keep the kettle in order to make another cup, so that they end up with a matching set. 

      One image shows a kettle with crushed Cuttle Fish added to the water. The other is the crushed Cuttle fish, I hoped that the Calcium (and if there's Magnesium to) in the Cuttle Fish would help speed up the formation of limescale when the kettle is used.

PotatoeStarchPlastic

Although potatoe, or rather starch, plastics are a viable material for replacing many consumer plastics derived from oil. It is not my intention by experimenting with it to do so. My exploration through objects as the design tool or mould for a new object requires materials; plaster is all very well for illustrating form but not practical in use. 

      The process and ingredients behind starch plastics are incredibly simple, this leaves the material open to everyone. Maybe my design could instruct a user on how to form something new from an object rather than just discard it. 

RachelWhiteread

ObjectsAsTools #1

I did these moulds to look at the potential of using obsolete objects as design tools, in this case formers. Different objects lend themselves to different processes, so the moulded toolbox has no undercuts and can form a perfect replication of the original mould.

How do people react to different inputs? In this case an aesthetically raw material as opposed to a formed cup.

Chair, to remind material, to sledge.

why re-mining?

I say re-mining to highlight the material value of recycling and it begins to describe my interest in the influence a recycled object has on a designer. We put our waste in motion through a reries of non-spaces. Starting at a skip and ending in landfill, where it waits. re-mining is the process by which we will return these resources, to once again share our space with us.

MindWeather

!-!elper Man

Helper man was a research idea. It links back to Challenge Anneka.

transitive verb
1 : to give assistance or support to *help a child with homework* 2 a : to make more pleasant or bearable : IMPROVE, RELIEVE *bright curtains will help the room* *took an aspirin to help her headache* b archaic : RESCUE, SAVE 3 a : to be of use to : BENEFIT b : to further the advancement of : PROMOTE 4 a : to change for the better b : to refrain from : AVOID *we couldn't help laughing* c : to keep from occurring : PREVENT *they couldn't help the accident* d : to restrain (oneself) from doing something *knew they shouldn't go but couldn't help themselves* 5 : to serve with food or drink especially at a meal *told the guests to help themselves* 6 : to appropriate something for (oneself) *helped himself to the car keys*
intransitive verb 1 : give assistance or support ó often used with out *helps out with the housework* 2 : to be of use or benefit synonyms see IMPROVE ñso help me : upon my word : believe it or not

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#contents

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These three images document the response i got to the #contents blackboard.

skip website - HireIt + FindIt

With the abundant source of resources in skips spanning the country, I want to aid those ready to re-use. I intend to develop a series of skip attachments designed to aid the skip raider.

The skip is an object that attracts and repels people. Those that are attracted tend to make use of the free source of resources. It is a device that transports objects from our daily use and understanding to an abstract, out of sight, location. Their user no longer desires the objects, instead they return to a primitive material composition. At this point it can become more effort to mine again, than their original extraction costs were. Their previous design lingers, confusing their reuse with layers of meaning and associations. This can also be a trigger for breaking rules and building narrative around the link between the new use and what it once did. It’s interesting to see how the new object attracts and repels the old.

Objects attract and repel

The Ikea advert revealed to me the power of a skip to level attractions and repulsions between objects. I decided to take the skip as my focus and location for my experiments. While the skip levels the properties of the objects it contains. It also has an attraction (source of free, often interesting objects and materials) and repulsion (sight of waste, decay, sign of our wastefull lifestyle). As one of those who see it as a great source of "it will be usefull, honest' materials, I wanted to create outcomes that aided the skip raider.

The leveller of all objects

"In 1995, an Ikea ad campaign (above) urged Britsh shoppers to "chuck out your chintz' and discover the joys of self-essembly furniture instead."

'In 1998, 180 million people visited over 150 Ikea stores in 28 countries including China'
(page 26, Products of our Time, David Redhead, 745.2 RED)

magnets repel sharks

supriseSuprise

Challenge Anneka

Lewisham show off our work

Liz's expression says it all. When we arrived at Lewisham Library, many of our boards displaying our work were on the floor. The window was dirty and the display badly hung with names in the wrong places. But still, no one turned down the photo.

Coconut#2

Coconut#1

PostR