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"alchemy" Tag


Material Alchemy


Monday, November 28, 2016

Living in a time where we turn our resources into waste in high speed makes me very much wonder about the time where our planet’s virgin materials will be depleted. Our constantly growing world population leads to a growing demand for materials. Since materials are fundamental to everything we engage with, new ways of manufacturing them are needed.

Is there a way to turn all our waste back into resources?

Diving back into the mystical secrets of twelfth-century Alchemy led the Amsterdam based designer duo Studio Drift to a way of transforming our chemical waste into something new. By processing initially considered intractable chemical residual material, Studio Drift explores an entirely new way of gaining a material resembling to the volcanic glass Obsidian [x].

After a particular heating process, the glowing mixture can be poured into molds and the obtained outcome is a material with its very own unique characteristics. It sounds like metal, looks like glass and is heavy as a stone.
When I look in the polished black surface of this synthetic obsidian, my own effigy gets reflected by the waste.

 

The Obsidian Project made by Stuio Drift

 

But do we even need all those resources to produce materials we can only hardly recycle later?
While many designers are intently trying to close the cycle of production and recycling to support a circular economy, alternative ways of producing material without any need of resources are considered.

The current generation of designers, alchemists and scientists are crossing the boundaries to explore the unexplored and reshape the future by growing living organisms as materials.
Dealing with a lot of various materials in my every-days study awakes huge interest in the process of replacing toxic materials with long-term, sustainable material solutions.

Following the steps of designers and scientists I started to research about approaching materials in unconventional ways. With the advancements of synthetic biology a palette of futuristic ways to grow material by itself are evolved.
To gain a better understanding of the process and potential of these materials, I started a project of exploring one of those self growing organisms myself.
Inspired and fascinated by bio-materials that grow by themselves I decided to explore Mycelium, a material grown out of convenient Mushrooms such as Fungi.
A small research led me to Mediamatic, where I met Wouter Hass, the expert mycologist and owner of the Amsterdam-based Mycophilia. With a lot of enthusiasm he gave me a closer insight in his work. In a mostly self-built laboratory he searches for the unexplored potential of Fungi. Not only as regards taste he admires the mushroom, he also grows big blocks of Bio-Material out of it, which can be used as isolation and packaging material and later be composted.

Mycelium_1100

After our interesting conversation about the whole process, I could not wait to gave it a try myself. Following Wouters instructions, I sterilized straw by cooking and cultivated it with Fungi spores. Stored in a plastic bag in the dark, fruiting bodies constructed by white fungal network with reproductive structures are growing. These structures are called Mycelium. In the woods these strains transfer the nutrients, as well as they detoxificate dead plants.

Mycelium in straw_1100

After a few weeks it grew to a block which I now separated in pieces. These pieces I placed together with jute in a mold, made out of two buckets. Humidified and covered by a foil it is stored in the dark of my closet again. If everything works out well, the pieces will soon grow together and overgrow the jute.

After a process of fully drying the Bio-Material the potential of this organism seems to be endless. The Outcome is a light but strong material. Alternatively to letting Mycelium grow into its supposed shape, it can even be 3D printed. Its developments can be found in fields like fashion, design and architecture. It is used in form of a leather-like textile, furniture, packaging as well as construction material and many more as I saw at Dutch Design Week 2016. [x]

By further developments of Mycelium, many ecologically harmful materials could probably be replaced by a fully compostable product that merges science and nature.

Another ongoing personal research of growing materials is about bacteria. By culturing the bacteria of Kombucha in sugared tea,  a healthy drink is made.Further than that it grows a slightly transparent surface. As soon as this surface reaches the desired thickness, it can be removed and dried to a skin-like material. An inspiring conversation at the pop up Pet-Shop [x] from Waag society made me curious to give it a try myself.

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Fashion designers such as Suzanne Lee [x] and Sacha Laurin [x] are important pioneers in growing clothes from bacteria. A closer look into the usage of grown textile is given  in the very interesting blogpost ‘Bio Fashion Future Fashion‘ by Alba. Considering one kilogram of cotton requires 23.000 l water and mostly grows in developing countries, Kombucha couture seems like a fundamental step into a more economical future to me.

The palette of possibilities of synthetic materials gained without using the world’s last resources is literally growing in many directions. Other impressive designers such as Laura Lynn Jansen & Thomas Vailly even found a way of growing Stoneware which can be seen here.

I consider those developments of biologically grown material as a good start to solve one of our biggest global issues and I am very curious about the first outcome of my own try outs which i want to keep updated here. Meanwhile Deezen has some really nice articles to read more about synthetic material.

BibliOdyssey


Monday, January 4, 2010

Students of the Rietveld have many libraries at their service.
On top of the Public Libraries there are many specialized libraries covering many different fields of specialized interests. Designblog tried to give you some glance into Rietveld’s own small library by means of opening up it’s hidden treasures in two projects, called “The Library Project 2008″ and “Subjective Library Project 2009″.

Most frequently we continue our researches in the Library of the “Rijksakademie” especially when our search is art oriented. Their collection, dating back to the 18th century, includes approximately 33.000 volumes.
In addition to 85 magazine subscriptions and some 1400 videos and dvd’s, there is a large collection of monographies, catalogues of exhibitions and art theory books on visual arts, photography, video, applied art and architecture. Next to the regular collection it harbers a beautiful, exiting and inspiring special collection of rare and old book on a wide spectrum of subjects, including illustration, decorative art and others. Come in person and be awe-inspired.
The Rietveld itself squandered her special collection in the 1990ties due to lack of space and vision. Only a few items remained in their collection and archive. Stuff coming from collections like this can nowedays be found on many online blogs and sites too. Look at Designblog’s own links like BibliOdyssey (read more), Linedandunlined, Spacecollective and many others.

But there is no thing like the real thing.

The Stedelijk Museum Library is specialized on modern and contemporary art. This library is together with the Tate Research Centre and Bibliothèque Kandinsky/Centre Pompidou the biggest in Europe) and design subject of the 20th century).
The Dutch Institute of Media Art “Montevideo/Time Based Arts” (NIMK) mediatheque is the ultimate place for everything focused on video- and visual art. This Institute has a huge collection of video and a brought library.
Go there, take time and see for yourself.
The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica is a highly unique library on manuscripts and printed works in the field of the Hermetic tradition that are mostly philosophical, theosophical, astrological, magical or alchemical in nature.
The Library of the University of Amsterdam (UBA/UvA) was founded in 1578, when the books and manuscripts of all catholic institutions and the city library were merged. Next to its main building at the Singel there are many other library collections (like Artis/Zoo Library) connected. Most interesting are their special collections (on printed matter and its history).
The International Institute of Social History (IISH) is the world’s largest documentation and research centre in the field of social history. The institute is independent and reliable, which makes it a natural depository of the frequently threatened cultural heritage of the labor movement and other emancipatory groups and currents. The IISH is an institute that comes under the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Of course their are many more specialized libraries like the one in “Huis Marseille” on photography, the Academie van Bouwkunst and NAi (Dutch Architecture Institute in Rotterdam) on architecture and many others, never much more than a hour away by train. Most of them can be accessed on line like The Photography Library, a cooperation between FOAM (Amsterdam) and the Dutch Photo Museum (Rotterdam). For Fashion we just travel to Antwerp to visit the MoMu Library. Most students have free transport in the Netherlands.

Sculptures


Sunday, December 6, 2009

Alchemy and Mysticism


Wednesday, November 4, 2009

I rented two books ‘Alchemie & Mystiek’ edition 1997 and edition 2006, just to be on the safe side if one where to be better then the other one, no difference between them in the end. I randomly picked the 1997 edtion because it was laying on its back, and would have returned it had the contents not been so fascinating. Here a selection;

Macrocosmos, Ptolemaeus, Brahe, Copernicus, Sun, Moon, Lower Astronomy, Divine Bodies, Genesis, World-egg, Opus Magnum, Elementa chemicae, Adams Fall, Chaos, Ressurection, Aurora, Filosofical Tree, Sefiroth, Ab uno, Oedipus chimicus, Snake, Conjunctio Rosarium Philosophorum, Androgyn, Separatio, Trinity, Fire, Filosofical-egg, Matrix, Source, Dhristus-lapis, Blood, Microcosmos, Human form Divine, Brains and memory, Rotation, Divine geometry.

These concepts gave me associations to my childhoud, when i used to read a lot about these subjects. But these days it reminds me more of the fascination of man, trying to percieve reality trough metafysical thinking.  How he failed miserably,  but through his failing created great stories and art

905.0 roob 1


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