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?