CWOCA.com

Plastiki is Ready to Set Sail

Matthew Harrison — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:00:16 +0000

This past Saturday the Plastiki crew christened their new sailing beauty with a traditional polynesian ceremony. This 12,000 plastic bottle 60 foot catamaran hopes to send a message as it sets off for Australia and ventures through the great pacific garbage patch.

You can follow the voyage with their tracking system on the Plastiki website. Also check out the main sponsor of the event Adventure Ecology created by the eco-celebrity David de Rothschild.

We wish them well on their voyage!

David Ellis- Musically Influenced Creations

Contemporary Power Plants

Matthew Harrison — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:32:21 +0000

The structures of old meet the structures of new, power plants were designed for function and output, but have now graduated to courses in art, upcycling, and spiritualism. Below is a view of the new potential of power plants.

A call to artists from around the world, the Land Art Generator Initiative is set to bring together artists, architects, scientists, and engineers to collaborate in building a sustainable powerplant with an artist flare.

Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid with each land art sculpture having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes.

THE PROJECT IS DIVIDED INTO 7 STAGES AS FOLLOWS

Stage 1 Feasibility study and project guideline development

Stage 2 Call for submittals

Stage 3 Submitted ideas selection and exhibition

Stage 4 Issue of RFPs for design documentation of successful proposals

Stage 5 Tender of construction works for successful proposals

Stage 6 Construction of sites

Stage 7 Management of complete sites and continuing public outreach and education projects

Here is another recent submitall for the project, which consists of 832 wave energy collecting devices to form in the shape of necklace, and to approximately power 15,000 households of the East coast city.

The pope has even gone big with Europe’s largest solar powered unit, not just to green wash but based on moral and environmental obligations as he states:

“The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use, and the violent hoarding of the Earth’s resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development.”

Plasma Arc technology is at the forefront of contemporary powerplants using waste materials as the fuel to energy production. Check out MSNBC’s in depth article of this new technology that doesn’t burn trash but only reduces its mass through gasification that is then burned.

Last but not least a reminder from Jeff Grew, who has created a timelapse video showing the emissions from the mid-America power plant just south of Council Bluffs Iowa. He states that the video isn’t a political statement – that it’s purely for the love of art – but it’s tough to watch this and not think about the political and environmental implications of all the spewing emissions. The music paired with the video clips is the clincher.

Christine Lee-Repetition with Wood and Paper

Matthew Harrison — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:18:44 +0000

Christine Lee with the spirit to create by hand and the ambition to make the thrown away useful:

From my tendency to engage in highly process-driven tactile endeavors and my training in the craft based disciplines of woodworking and furniture design. i explore stretch and refine the typical associations and intended functions of mundane materials. My architecture and the natural environmnet, particularly where a strong connection exists between structure and site.

Shims and a thousand uses for them.

Phonebooks and their many new uses. Why do I find these on my apartment steps? Its time to create an ordinance that phonebooks can only be delivered at request.

A perspective of unwanted phonebooks and their depth or as Christine would eloquently put:

the outdated phone book represents the weaving of a visual pattern found in organized information with a behavioral pattern existing in repetitive processes

A closeup of names and her creation

Her repetitive process creates as though it came from nature

Steel case meets paper

via missleelee

NY Times: Ecological Unconscious

Matthew Harrison — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:24:05 +0000

Great New York Times article of how our psyche is connected to the natural environment. Some quotes below summarizing this in depth article.

In a 2004 essay, he coined a term to describe it: “solastalgia,” a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root –algia (pain), which he defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’ ”

Recently, a number of psychiatrically inflected coinages have sprung up to represent people’s growing unease over the state of the planet — “nature-deficit disorder,” “ecoanxiety,” “ecoparalysis.”

“More and more,” Kahn writes, “the human experience of nature will be mediated by technological systems.” We will, as a matter of mere survival, adapt to these changes. The question is whether our new, nature-reduced lives will be “impoverished from the standpoint of human functioning and flourishing.”

Can the transformation of the environment for you equal progress, destruction or no effect?

Over The Weekend- September 14, 2009

David Ellis- Musically Influenced Creations

Derek W Chang — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:45:46 +0000

David Ellis, painter and sculptor, creates his work with music in mind. He even, “…stages events when exhibiting his motion paintings, inviting musicians, performers, and sound artists to interpret the work live.” Most of his paintings are in the tradition of street art, drawn on public walls, sometimes even on trucks. What we like the most however, are his sculptures which often use reclaimed materials.

Old vinyl album covers arranged in progressing colors make for a pretty sweet wall display…

…and the records themselves also put to use.

An actual functioning double bass fiddle modification speaker system. I like the integration of acoustic and electronic.

Ellis and a musician named Roberto Lange recently collaborated on these humorous musical moving garbage installations entitled 8 Million Stories on view now at the Margulies Warehouse in Miami, Florida.

Reclaim Surfing-Nathan Gibbs

Matthew Harrison — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:54:25 +0000

Nathan focuses most of his creative time on painting but when the mood strikes him he dabbles with found materials.

Nathan Gibbs:

“Sometimes when I am looking through pieces of wood in the old ghost towns of Death Valley, or combing the beaches of central California, I imagine the wood talking to me, saying ‘pick me, pick me! I can do this for you’, like they are wanting a second chance feeling as though they failed somehow in not being a good rocking chair, or coastal tree.”

The above painting representing Nathan’s home in the OC.

With whatever material he could find, coupled with his surf art obsession, created this fine wave.

Wood scraps make a nice bowl.

Nathan has also released a book available through blurb.

Daphne Ruff-Collage & Handbags

Matthew Harrison — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:11:01 +0000

Daphne Ruff’s beautiful collages show her passion to mix many sources into one cohesive piece.

A native of Eugene, Oregon and now a current resident of Oakland California, Daphne’s most current obsession is combining found objects into unique purses as seen below.

All of her handbags are custom made and unique.

Daphne Ruff:

Some of these purses tend to be slightly heavier than your average purse, but women have always endured a little pain for the sake of beauty.

The beauty, pain and art of being a woman, so eventually, like I sometimes do, a man can carry the woman to a taxi after a full night of dancing in heels.

A full collection of purses, from her own satchels and messengers to your own custom orders.

Erik Otto-Found Wood and Environmental Collage

Ridin’ the Plastic Tube

Matthew Harrison — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:09:13 +0000

Mark Lukach documents Katheleen Egan’s Plastic Wave creation. A surfer and environmentalist, Kathleen picked up plastic trash on the beach–to later be used in her artistic creation of a plastic bottle, wave riding, barrel in the video above.

COP15 ART & Drama

Matthew Harrison — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:46:03 +0000

COP15: protests, threats of walk outs, controversy, more transparency and many suspect failure. But what do you know, artists have something show.

Deemed starving and out of money, which some believe to be the economic solution for a positive environmental future, artists have lead the sustainable lifestyle before the word ’sustainable’ became popular and green washed.

Some of the finest international artists have come to support Copenhagen talks with illustrations of a positive environmental outcome for policy success and a bleak artistic forecast of whats to come if world leaders continue their current path.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the talks its been a flurry reports, its like a teenager’s emotional transition to adulthood and their constant crush status updates on pretty famous people–a sign that politics has caught up to twitter. As Bill McKibben states:

COPENHAGEN—The Bella Center is a swirl of chatter, the streets of Copenhagen are a swirl of protest. Depending on what hour you listen to the news bulletin, the U.N. climate negotiations have “come off the rails” or are “back on track” or have “stalled” or are “moving swiftly.” Which is why the only people who really understand what’s going on may be a small crew of folks from a group of computer jockeys called Climate Interactive. Their software speaks numbers, not spin—and in the end it’s the numbers that count.

When the talks stalled out, the Pope got on action with holy sentiment that an agreement could be made.

Rethink Climate supported the Cop15 event with 26 international aritists shown below on their press release (Thilo Frank-Vertical Skip Shown Above). For more events check out Arts for COP15.

Henkrik Hakansson Denfrie-Atmosphere

Bill Burns made a sample to be put on order at a chinese factory, hopefully demand doesn’t create a supply. (Sarcasm)

Ruri with Glass Rain

Tue with Green Fort

Olafur Eliasson with Your Water Colour Machine

MAPT gets in on the action and builds a modular pavilion.

Copenhagen has a shipping container graveyard, because it costs more to dispose of the container instead of buying a new one.

Nice outside and in.

As the climate talks have come to an end, there is no knowing what really came out of it. It became a tangled mess that will take a great deal of time to unwind, with the most important nations, US and China not coming to any real agreement. Woohoo!?!?!

Corrugated Butter [Video]

Matthew Harrison — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:59:28 +0000

Handmade, omitting any use of a CNC machine and with upcycled cardboard, we present a simple chair unlike most cardboard designs made from new materials. As today’s recycled cardboard arrives at recycling centers folded up and dirty, it made sourcing for this project the most difficult part.

Costco was happy to provide.

The next step: play around with some designs in Adobe and connect the dots.

Here is the template.

A dark alley by the railroad tracks is accomodating.

TV Screen Business Cards [Video]

Matthew Harrison — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:23:56 +0000

Neurowaxx / CC BY-NC 3.0

We were in need of business cards to give out and the Office Depot business card packet wasn’t worthy, so we did TV screen business cards. Check out the video above to see the upcycled/reclaimed process and listen to some funky beats.

If you want to reproduce this process you first need to find a TV screen out of a projection TV. We found ours at the local recycling center in the e-waste pile.

The biggest problem we had was finding a stencil material that was durable and wouldn’t wrinkle or warp after repeated use. Don’t use frisket film from Michael’s that was a big mistake unless you plan on only using it a couple times. We couldn’t find the easy cut plastic for stenciling so we just used a garage sale sign from Lowe’s. The paint was reclaimed and pulled from the recycling center paint pile. A hobby shop will tell you not to use latex paint with an airbrush gun, but we did a 50/50 mix of water and paint and it only clogged up once and was easy to clean out.

TV screen material produces a holographic affect when you paint on two different sides.

From these two pictures you can tell how it changes from looking at it straight on or from an angle.

Master Sculptor-Chris Gilmour

Matthew Harrison — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:40:17 +0000

The Cardboard Master, Chris Gilmour, creates meticulous sculptures of almost every genre. To explain more he states in an interview:

The reason for the choice of objects has always been pretty much the same- they call up memories and emotions connected to our experience of these (everyday) things. Since this is both a visual and conceptual work I choose objects for their visual appeal and cultural resonance, but I also usually choose objects which imply an action or interaction of some sort.

The detail of his work with glue and cardboard is over the top; zoom in to appreciate and zoom out to be fooled into thinking its the real thing.

Which is for you, the badass trike or the quiet ride down Main St?

Not sure how he sculpted that…

American’s don’t have these classy rides that have always looked so much fun to drive in a European countryside.

And to end with, a violin solo.

Creative Lust-International Street Artists Create for Necessity

Matthew Harrison — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:42:46 +0000

Long video, but quantity and quality are equal!

Bacteria & Viruses & Diseases, Oh My!

Derek W Chang — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:04:46 +0000

Forrest McCluer combines parts from old computers to make “computer” viruses (haha?). They’re actually representations of biological viruses, hardly a coughing matter. These sculptures are very detailed as well, for example: inside the cell membrane, there are wires from a CAT5 cable meant to represent actual strands of DNA. Shown above is the Wilco Virus, based on the AIDS virus.

This Capacitor Virus is a representation of the Rhinovirus, made from capacitors taken from PC power supplies.

CV#6 T9 Track 1/2″ 6250BPI Magnetic Tape Virus

Via Gajitz.

Forget vegetable ink, Dutch designer Jelte van Abbema prints with bacterial cultures, and for this body of work, Symbiosis, he won the €10,000 Rado Prize at the Dutch Design Awards.

(Above) Print on paper.

Print on billboard.

These forms change color as bacteria, the main medium, multiply and die. The artist took a course at the department of microbiology at the University Wageningen in order to not cause an epidemic. (Phew)

Via Dezeen

The most beautiful diseases are created by a very accomplished artist by the name of Luke Jerram. Above: HIV.

Your friend, E. Coli.

The dreaded Swine Flu.

From the artist’s website:

These transparent glass sculptures were inspired by the global impact of each disease, while also giving consideration to how the artificial coloring of scientific imagery affects our understanding of scientific phenomena. Jerram is exploring the tension between the artworks’ beauty and the representation of their impact on humanity.

Via Jim On Light

The Three Metal Chairs

Matthew Harrison — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:00:17 +0000

A bed of nails never looked so good. Meticulously placed, bent and then grinded by Jeahyo Lee, these benches are beautifully designed as works of art.

Looks like a flowing water current or wind sweeping across its undulating texture.

Finally, coins that fill my pocket and end up in a jar have some use. Johnny Swing presents a piece made from many coins, joined together in one piece. Pay money to buy a product made out of money? Commerce has never been so confused.

Dubbed “Scream” because of its wide open mouth, this hand woven bench is made out of recycled aluminum placed over a mold.

Part of Project Import Export and one of Bannavis Andrew Sribyatta’s amazing designs, it would be worthy of a good scream if gifted to me.

Christine Lee-Repetition with Wood and Paper

Compressed Paper Design-Hannah Lobley

Matthew Harrison — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:20:32 +0000

Hannah Lobely started her paperwork products business in 2006 and since then has received international acclaim and accolades for her creations.

Because of years of weathering, each paper brick, made from old books, creates a unique look every time.

Made from waste papers and magazines, the compression of words on paper appears similar to pressure and time made granite.

Paper paperweights made from old unreadable novels.

Howes Percival Solicitors and Mantle Arts commission in Leicester. Representing the past and present of Howe’s Percival with letters.

Store your own papers and notes in this paper cabinet.

And of course, Hannah creates the obvious, ingenious bookends made from… that’s right, old books.

You can find Hannah’s work at Liberty, where design has been key since 1875.

Umbrella Stand Mailbox

Derek W Chang — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:39:37 +0000

This is a little project I did for a friend that needed an umbrella stand. Above you see a banged up mailbox that someone threw away at the dump.

I cleaned it up and sanded away some of the rough edges, rust and paint.

I started spray-painting (I know, it’s not environmentally friendly, sorry), choosing blue tones relating to the umbrella stand/water theme. I then cut raindrop and splash shapes out of used brown bags and started decorating the mailbox going for a “grunge” look, more than a “clean” look. It turned out like this:

…and from the other side:

I stuck on the number “625″ for my friend who moved from apartment 25 on the 6th floor of one building to another apartment 25 on the 6th floor of different building.

This project was fairly simple and only took a couple days (because I had to wait for the paint to dry), but it shows how you can turn trash into something cool and functional and it doesn’t even need to be hard. Hope you like it!

Mother Light Prototype [Video]

Over the Weekend- Oct 5, 2009

Derek W Chang — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:56:47 +0000

The LG GD510 touchscreen phone has a built-in solar panel on the back to help with charging and will be released mid-October in Europe. Why is the US often last to receive new technology? Via EcoFriend

A Field of shoelaces and ec0-friendly shoes by Dominic Wilcox as a part of London Design Week. More @designboom

Don’t think these chairs are for sittin’, more for listenin’. Mikal Hameed wants to bring people together with music. Via Inhabitat

Ahh Shark! Don’t worry, it’s just a Whale Shark made from flip-flops by Kenyan local artists to raise awareness about these hunted creatures. Via TreeHugger

Excerpts

“Imagine a future in which pointing a PDA at a product bar code returns an instant readout of product source and environmental footprint to inform the buyer’s decision. This future could be reality with SourceMap.” Via TreeHugger

“New Yorkers are still tossing out more than half the stuff they should be recycling, managing to go green only 42% of the time.” They blame confusion and lack of space.

“Enerkem, a green energy company based in Quebec, has developed an alternative approach to mining the carbon out of non-recyclable plastics, construction waste and other materials found in the municipal waste stream.” “This fall, the company started construction on a $65 million plant in Edmonton, Alberta, that will transform 110,000 tons of sorted municipal solid waste into about 9.5 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol.” Via NY Times

Weave This-Waste Materials Become High End Textiles

Derek W Chang — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:42:36 +0000

Ok, so you probably know there are all sorts of organic material being used in clothing nowadays. Organic cotton, bamboo, soy and hemp are being used by eco-friendly clothing and textile manufacturers, but what about using nontraditional material to spin and weave?

Greetje van Tiem, a Dutch Designer has figured out a way to weave newspaper into classy material which can be used to upholster furniture…

…or weave into a curtain.

(Above) A closeup of the texture. The process is deceivingly simple, it just takes time and patience. Here’s how you do it. Images via Dezeen

Manto a fashion label that brings back traditional Argentinian weaving has a collection appropriately called Rubber.

They successfully incorporate used tires into their patterns resulting in fresh, sturdy bags. Via TreeHugger

Even plastic bags can be woven into a new life as a bag, carpet or whatever you wish. Above are details of how nice the product can turn out. If you feel inspired, find out how you can weave plastic. Images via Homestead Weaver.

Something a little harder to weave for the ordinary craftsman is cassette tapes. Alyce Santoro makes funky clothing and more that can actually play music.

Her label is called Sonic Fabric. They have nice ties also for men.

Any other unorthodox material out there that can be turned into textile and be woven? Let’s hear it!

Jeremy Mayer-Typewriter Sculpture

Matthew Harrison — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:21:27 +0000

Jeremy Mayer’s typewriter sculptures are meticulously created. He states:

“I disassemble typewriters and then reassemble them into full-scale, anatomically correct human figures. I do not solder, weld, or glue these assemblages together- the process is entirely cold assembly.”

Currently residing in Palo Alto California, he began working with typewriters in Iowa in 1994.

The above illustration depicts the image an atom. Jeremy’s interests in molecular engineering, biotechnology and science fiction are the primary influencers behind his work.

He employs a progressive perspective on typewriters as a sculpting material.

“Though it is cold metal created by human hands, the typewriter is just as much a natural material as stone or wood.”

Animals and insects are some other anatomical shapes he enjoys making.

Jeremy doesn’t associate his work with the steampunk aesthetic, as his own style demonstrates a look and medium unique to most.

+Jeremy Mayer