Oliver Bishop-Young

Today I will mostly be eating purple...

2009-05-19T13:50:00.002+01:00

Back to the country for a spell

2009-05-16T11:59:00.001+01:00

Twitter logo

2009-05-06T00:41:00.000+01:00

Andy Budd - FOWD London 2008 on Vimeo

2009-05-06T00:28:00.000+01:00

Andy Budd - FOWD London 2008 from Future of Web Design on Vimeo.

2008-04-27T15:55:00.000+01:00

2008-03-25T18:17:00.000Z

2008-03-03T21:32:00.002Z

2008-03-02T23:42:00.000Z

2008-02-24T22:13:00.000Z

2008-02-24T22:06:00.000Z

2008-02-24T21:49:00.000Z

Skip Landing

2008-02-24T20:38:00.004Z

Tuesday 19th Feb and my skip arrives courtesy of All Wini's Waste, a big thank you to them for helping.

2008-02-11T01:17:00.000Z

knots

2008-02-11T00:53:00.001Z

Sugar Table Moulded

2008-02-10T23:02:00.000Z

Wax Chair Moulded

2008-02-10T23:00:00.000Z

Dying

2008-02-10T22:24:00.000Z

Indigo (from a leguminous plant of the Indigofera genus), Cobalt, Roses, Turquoise and Coaquolicit from a market in Morocco are traditional forms of dying many kinds of artefacts. I tried adding it to liquid wax with unimpressive results. Wax can be easily coloured with custom dyes, wax crayons or even poster paint. The reason the pigments didn't work when used straight is because the dye needs to be soluble in wax, which in there natural form they are not.

Sarah Van Gameren - Candle chandelier

2008-02-10T22:03:00.000Z

2008-02-10T21:57:00.000Z

2008-02-10T21:55:00.000Z

Composting materials can take varying amounts of time depending on the exact conditions. A good way to tell how well its working is to see how hot the matter gets. Bob Flowerdew, you know the regular on gadrfeners qustihon tme..., gets his so hot your hand can't withstand being buried in it. Aeration, ratio of carbon to nitrogen rich input and the presence of living creatures (such as worms) all effect the efficiency of a composting. My design would benefit from an increase in size, facilities for rotating its contents, addition of Red Earthworms (which would in-turn require bedding: newspaper, sawdust, hay etc) and selecting suitable plants such as Squash, Pumpkins and melons.A ratio of carbon content 25:1 of nitrogen by weight is best.

2008-02-08T21:44:00.000Z

2008-02-08T21:42:00.000Z

2008-02-08T21:24:00.001Z

2008-02-08T21:19:00.000Z

2008-02-08T21:10:00.000Z

2008-02-08T21:08:00.000Z

2008-02-08T21:07:00.000Z

2008-02-08T20:40:00.000Z

2008-02-08T20:39:00.000Z

2008-02-08T20:38:00.001Z

2008-02-07T23:47:00.000Z

To test sugar syrups:

-A bowl of cold water by the stove
-A teaspoon
-A teatowel

Take a half-tsp of syrup with the spoon. Dip your fingers in cold water, wipe them on the tea towel (wet fingers will alter the 'feel' of the syrup). Take the spooned syrup between thumb and forefinger and feel its texture:

107°c- vaseline
108°c- short thread (when testing the tackiness, you'll see threads of up to 5mm between thum and forefinger)
110°c- long thread (idem, 3-4cm threads)
115°c- soft ball (you'll be able to roll a squidgy ball of syrup between your fingers)
120°c- firm ball
124°c- hard ball

Do not touch the syrups above this temperature!!

Dough

2008-02-07T23:44:00.001Z

Inspiring Jason...

2008-02-07T23:05:00.000Z

Hygiene

2008-02-07T22:55:00.000Z

One common reason for many items ending up in a skip is when someone buys or sells a house. One person's possessions are not flexible enough to withstand a change in subject. This series of tests addresses issues of hygiene. The thin layers of materials (plaster, BioResin, Rubber etc.) allow the new user to peel off the surface of an object (futon base for example) and claim a new clean surface on which to build a strong subject-object relationship.

Park Project

2008-02-07T22:46:00.000Z

RCA

2008-02-07T22:43:00.000Z

Alexander Taylor - Fold Lamp

2008-02-07T22:37:00.000Z

Fold Lamp
Alexander Taylor, 2004
This black table lamp is constructed from a powder-coated aluminum sheet folded into a traditional form and accented with a braided fabric cable and red cord.

Knitting Curtain rails

2008-02-07T22:32:00.000Z

Jasper Morrison

2008-02-07T22:25:00.001Z

The series of chairs by Jasper at the Design Museum explore mono material objects. This cork chair is milled from a solid block of cork, the process means there are no joints or mixing of materials. The material could easily be re-mined.

Skip Cam 1

2008-02-07T22:24:00.001Z

I sent out disposable cameras to willing skip companies to take photos of the contents of skips. I am still waiting for them to be sent back...

2008-01-31T22:02:00.000Z

Next step

2008-01-25T12:49:00.000Z

Context report finished, now to write a brief that brings it all together into one achievable project. There are three aspects of my work I want to realise. Firstly, continuing the skip attachments looking to keep a social aspect to my work. The aim is to transform the impression the public have of skips. Not to see them as dirty waste but as a great resource. The theory of phüsis, that which Aristotle describes in nature as ‘movedeness’, if applied to design can at the very least reduce waste. If taken further it can transform the contents of a skip into a series of challenges for restarting the movement. I begin to be unclear again. What I mean is that nature doesn’t produce waste, in the sense that all substances move through different forms in a continuous cycle. These forms which we perceive as seed, sapling, tree, dead wood, rotten wood, mulch etc. are moments along which a cycle of ‘movedness’. Though it is always what it intends to be, it is constantly moving towards what it intends to become. If we look at design, and for arguments sake call it outside of nature, then we see our objects as finished. Chair, table, hat, bath, book; are considered finished and unmoving. Obviously this means that when they are no longer wanted, there is no vision of the table becoming something else and it is therefore treated as waste to fill up landfill. Bringing a sense of phüsis into design, how I see it at least, would treat waste as the end of one stage and need for movement into another. This could be considered (and sometimes is) after the object becomes waste. But could (rarely is) be considered at the objects inception. So by examining the reasons for an object becoming unwanted or wasted, I can design the object again with a function built in to counteract this in the form of a movement to a new state, function or subject object relationship.

The shape I envisage this taking, as I said before, is split three ways. Social activity around a skip will uncover the reasons for waste and provide contact with users. Physically archiving the reasons for objects becoming waste will help us learn them and provide the knowledge needed for the third part, designing solutions applied to an objects inception.

oliverbishopyoung.co.uk

2008-01-03T22:07:00.000Z

http://www.oliverbishopyoung.co.uk/

2007-12-17T15:45:00.001Z

wrap up contents of a skip individually

Skip Cam #1

2007-12-17T13:33:00.000Z

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).

2007-12-17T11:44:00.001Z

2007-12-13T01:01:00.000Z

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

2007-12-13T00:33:00.000Z

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

2007-12-13T00:08:00.000Z

‘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

2007-12-12T23:21:00.000Z

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

2007-12-12T22:49:00.000Z

'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

2007-12-09T22:36:00.000Z

Fossils

2007-12-09T14:59:00.000Z

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

2007-11-25T23:38:00.001Z

liver Bishop-Young

2007-11-25T23:05:00.000Z

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

2007-11-15T09:48:00.001Z

OjectAsTool #2 KettleLimescale

2007-11-11T12:47:00.000Z

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

2007-11-11T12:41:00.000Z

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

2007-11-11T12:34:00.000Z

ObjectsAsTools #1

2007-11-11T12:27:00.001Z

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.

2007-11-11T12:22:00.000Z

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

2007-11-11T12:19:00.000Z

Chair, to remind material, to sledge.

why re-mining?

2007-10-28T17:50:00.000Z

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.

2007-10-28T17:25:00.000Z

MindWeather

2007-10-28T15:09:00.000Z

!-!elper Man

2007-10-28T14:31:00.000Z

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

∞

2007-10-28T13:42:00.000Z

#contents

2007-10-28T13:31:00.000Z

#3

#2

#1

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

skip website - HireIt + FindIt

2007-10-28T13:16:00.000Z

2007-10-21T19:30:00.000+01:00

2007-10-21T18:48:00.000+01:00

2007-10-21T18:44:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-10-21T17:49:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-16T01:58:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-16T01:41:00.000+01:00

"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

2007-10-09T15:10:00.001+01:00

supriseSuprise

2007-10-08T22:54:00.000+01:00

2007-10-08T22:53:00.000+01:00

Challenge Anneka

2007-10-06T13:50:00.000+01:00

Lewisham show off our work

2007-10-06T11:15:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-06T11:12:00.000+01:00

Coconut#1

2007-10-06T11:08:00.000+01:00

PostR

2007-10-03T23:31:00.000+01:00

Roding light

2007-10-03T23:04:00.000+01:00

Ready made #1

2007-10-03T23:02:00.000+01:00

Extracting the flesh

2007-10-03T22:55:00.000+01:00

How to remove the flesh of the coconut through the three small holes. Dissolve? maybe but not with any of these solutions.

Nice bunch

2007-10-03T22:42:00.001+01:00

Transorming a coconut. Versions of the same object/material in different states. different reasons for desire and wealth.