Finally Bagged

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art, consumption, found, installation, recycling, sculpture, up-cycle, waste

‘Picture This… Gold in Your Hands’

Green Week at UCLAN was busy – art students worked really hard through freezing conditions to complete their installation on my frame (see below). Students collected hundreds of used plastic carrier bags and employing different textile techniques created a design with an environmental message.

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bacteria

Bacteria is the answer?

Just Science

Energy. We all have it and we all need it on multiple levels. Within our body, energy is stored in a molecular currency that is conserved among all living organisms, adenosine triphosphate, ATP. Of course, you should know that as humans, we require oxygen to live. During our metabolism, hydrogen atoms are divided into their two opposite parts, the proton and electron. The electrons are shuttled through several enzyme complexes while the protons are pumped out of the mitochondrial matrix creating a much greater proton concentration outside than inside. This imbalance is what drives Nature’s smallest rotary motor, ATP synthase. But what about the electrons? Your body has no need for them, energetically speaking so something needs to accept them for the big show to continue. In our case, the acceptor is oxygen. Oxygen accepts the electrons, and the protons that come along to reconstitute the full hydrogen…

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Nothing is green – depressing but informative – which colour should we seek now?

This sounds like an inspiring prayer for humanity, but I fear the congregation isn’t listening.

Playing a dangerous game with CO2

Outrage and condemnation of yet another powerful international group set to exploit the planet and its peoples

Water and energy are entwined and battling.

The amount of fresh water consumed for world energy production is on track to double within the next 25 years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects.

And even though fracking—high-pressure hydraulic fracturing of underground rock formations for natural gas and oil—might grab headlines, IEA sees its future impact as relatively small.

By far the largest strain on future water resources from the energy system, according to IEA’s forecast, would be due to two lesser noted, but profound trends in the energy world: soaring coal-fired electricity, and the ramping up of biofuel production.

If today’s policies remain in place, the IEA calculates that water consumed for energy production would increase from 66 billion cubic meters (bcm) today to 135 bcm annually by 2035.

That’s an amount equal to the residential water use of every person in the United States over three years, or 90 days’ discharge of the Mississippi River. It…

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The beauty of the circle and its infinity knows no bounds.

Exploring The Invisible

Just as the physical universe has its black holes and singularties, it appears that the biological universe does too! The bacterium Bacillus mycoides responds to a circle.

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Inertia

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art, chairs, flies, found, home, philosophy, quotes, sculpture, up-cycle, wooden

Are you sitting comfortably?

“It isn’t so much as what’s on the table that matters as what’s on the chairs”.

William S. Gilbert

The chair has long been a metaphor for the human and many artists have utilised this motif to great effect. It is a powerful symbol I return to often in my work, its accessibility makes it a favourite with many.

I have just finished working on the remnants of a broken and battered wooden chair, that I found washed up on a local beach, with its shabby paint and distorted form, it is completely gorgeous.  The chair appears to be walking into the wall with flies crawling up one side of its back.

Inertia

A new sculpture for my Beautiful Dystopias Collection.

Dimensions: 86 x 65 x 24 cm

Materials: found broken, wooden chair, hand crafted flies, concealed metal fixings

This sculpture will be be shown at the PR1 Gallery, Preston, UK from 8-19 April 2013 as part of my new solo exhibition Beautiful Dystopias.

Deadly plastic

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biology, birds, consumption, nature, plastic, rubbish, science, seas, waste

http://www.midwayfilm.com/

A haunting and beautiful film that captures the devastating impact our habit of dumping rubbish in the sea has on seabirds.
One cannot fail to be moved by such a poetic film.
Please watch, comment and share.

Mutual Respect

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animals, art, found, nature, rust, sculpture

A new sculpture in my Beautiful Dystopias Collection – ‘Ode to Mutualism’.

Dimensions: 43 x 42 x 19 cm

 

Materials: found rusty metal, dead Juniper twig, preserved hares ears

Many thanks to Rob Fraser for taking such sensitive photographs of my work.

 

Very strange but true – or is it?
Is it one of those wacky ideas that only work in a science lab – your thoughts please…

The Soundscraper is a futuristic structure designed to transform auditory vibrations from bustling cities into a source of clean energy. Designed by Julien Bourgeois, Olivier Colliez, Savinien de Pizzol, Cedric Dounval and Romain Grouselle, the Soundscraper is covered with noise-sensitive cilia that harvest kinetic energy while soaking up urban noise pollution.

An entry in the 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the Soundscrapers would be constructed near major motorways and railroad junctions, prime locations for capturing ambient vibrations. A sound-sucking material would cover the exterior of the tower with a double-skin layer, held away from the façade on a metallic frame.

For each Soundscraper, 84,000 electro-active lashes would cover the metal frame and pick up noise from cars, trains, pedestrians and passing planes. Each of the lashes is armed with sound sensors called Parametric Frequency Increased Generators. Once the noise is picked up, an energy harvester converts the vibrations to kinetic energy. Transducer…

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