Science Museum: Trash Fashion

"We are investigating the use of bacterial-cellulose, grown in a laboratory, to produce clothing.Our ultimate goal is to literally grow a dress in a vat of liquid..." This is a photo of a jacket that has been made using methods developed by the group BioCouture. The piece is made from sheets of sugary 'biofilm' produced by the microbes that ferment green tea. It is grown in bathtubs, moulded to fit, and then dried. The photo doesn't fully highlight this materials' qualities; it is in fact a beautifully semi-sheer fabric that has a similar texture to leather almost. The colour comes from the tea solution that the material is 'grown' in. The major benefit in pioneering this concept is that once it has 'worn out' it can go straight on the compost heap. Polyester currently represents around 60% of the fibres that we use and, whilst it is cheap to produce and buy, it is near about impossible to break down and fully recycle. However, this material still has a long way to go before it is a realistic one for making clothes as it absorbs 80% of its own weight when exposed to water and therefore in the rain just goes to a jelly-like consistency.  Alexander Bismarck at Imperial College London is investigating adding water in the making process so as to repel the molecules and stop the problem of jelly.

This is the 'knit to fit' design by Sandy Black from London Collage of Fashion. This is an innovative technique that uses a 3-dimenisonal body scanner in order to take personal measurements; these measurements can be taken in just 6 seconds by the specially made camera. An electronic eye replaces the tailors tape measure. With this information, once transmitted to a computer run knitting machine, a seamless, customised garment can be created there and then made to ones exact style and fit needs.


Given that every piece is made on the spot to only one person's needs, there is no wastage due to unsold or garments. Furthermore, this process benefits from the garment being made from just one whole piece of yarns, therefore  there is no wastage in this respect either. However, there are some disadvantages in that this is not a viable design to be produced on a mass level due to the personal contact the consumer has to have with the making process. This concept simply can't be applied on a 'mass customisation' level and in this way it is quite costly and not very sustainable in our consumer-driven society that so often values price and ease over quality and sustainability. 

Passport or ID-cart on request?

Read the sign above the cat's head; it makes this photo vaguely relevant to my previous post because it says something about forms of ID. But really I just liked this very badly taken picture from my last holiday.

Another brilliant photography effort on my part. This time round I would like to point out that this was a very dimly lit room. It's in the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam and it is a room crammed full of things for him to work from. The Cabinet was Rembrandt's collectibles room. In it, seashells, corals and exotic weapons filled the shelves, along with busts of Roman emperors, Venetian glassware and his most prized possessions - 8,000 art books, which included prints by artists such as Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. The room is totallyl awe-inspiring and makes you want to start hoarding all those precious little things from the natural world you once lovingly collected from beaches and holidays.

What would you collect to symbolise how you think about life?

In order to symbolise how I think about life I thought over the course of a few days about the things I use most, say most, watch most, eat most and hear most. I get the overground train then the tube to college in the morning everyday (between 9am and 10am) and during this journey I don't see a single person smile, apart from maybe a hapless tourist who's up too early on their holiday. Rather fittingly therefore, my student railcard has a very miserable looking mug in it, as do several other peoples' railcards no doubt, so this would make the cut for my collection as it is a necessity and on some levels the photo illustrates something I think about life. This choice made me think about the ridiculous number of forms of ID the average working person carries around with them: railcards, store cards, membership cards, building entry cards, bankcards, driving licences etc. A selection of identity cards would feature in my collection to highlight the sheer volume of them that we use.

The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei

'Sunflower Seeds' by Ai Weiwei has most recently been in the news (22nd October) for visitors now being restricted from walking on the installation of 100 million porcelain seeds. I unfortunately didn't get a chance to see it before this change was made, however, I still found it quite awe-inspiring. What was most interesting was the short film on it that is being shown on a loop just next the exhibit at the front of the Turbine Hall. Each seed is individual and each one has been painted by hand. They are all made in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen and the film illustrates the change that this project made to the city and its inhabitants. China is renowned for its imports of porcelain but this surely is one of the strangest commissions China, let alone that small city, will ever receive. There is a whole series of processes through which each seed must go, which the film briefly shows, and I find it amazing the dedication everybody had to the project to keep going with it however repetitive. It is impossible to envisage what the final result would be and thus the choice to hand paint each seed must have been a combination of excitement and anticipation and yet monotonous.

Pound shops, Rubbish, Derelict buildings

Rough Guide theory task - Reading Images and Objects

Brixton is a hugely diverse area with a vast range of cultures and attractions. What is most striking about Brixton is its independence; it feels like a community that needn't rely on any external resources. There is everything here you might need should you live here, from walk-in clinics to a choice of roughly 7 different fish stalls, Brixton even has its own currency, the Brixton Pound.

When we were asked to 'Choose an object from a market stall or second-hand shop or found object from the area you are exploring' I knew I had lots to choose from. After having looked around all the obvious places such as the market and the various charity shops, I went to the library in order to try to find out a little bit about the history of Brixton. They had a book sale on there in which I bought 'The Sexually Responsive Woman' by Drs. Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen. It cost 20p and was fittingly random to find amongst tatty old comics and failed thrillers to choose for this theory task. First off I suppose I should point out that it is made of paper. The paper is very yellowed with age, however, and the spine is bent and the cover has a fold in it and is quite dog-eared. Along the spine, for the purpose of finding it in the library, it has a sticker reading 'Sex Kro 410', which I personally think sounds quite sordid for some reason! There is a quote on the front cover from Simone de Beauvoir, 'Absorbing and Fascinating'. Other words I feel you would affiliate with the book are pioneering, shocking, informative, exciting, well-used, annotated, worn and taboo. This book has clearly been well used as there are sections of it annotated with whole paragraphs I presume were of importance to the mystery annotator having been highlighted. Another strange quirk of the book is a stamp  inside the cover reading 'MEMORIAL DONATION, GIORA DORON'; of this I can only assume it came from a collection of books donated by Ms Doron once she died and that she possibly is our mystery annotator. It was printed by Ballantyne Books, New York, in November 1965.

Within the context of the area this object fits strangely. Everyone seems generally offish, in so much as it is very difficult approaching these strangers as they seem mistrusting and more often than not too busy. It is hard to imagine any of these characters reading such an explicit book and quite amusing in many ways to think of any of the people I met going so far as to annotate it. I enjoy that it has been given this very personal edge and it was an interesting surprise on further examination.

The second object I am going to write about is some Paper Doilies I bought in a pound shop for 49p. In the pound shop there is a disproportionate amount of space dedicated to doilies and other party 'essentials'. On the packaging they are advertised as 'Smarter disposables fir throwing parties'. They are very thin, very delicate things, thinner than some leaves or even petals. They have a surprisingly intricate and beautiful pattern around the edge that looks like a kind of Chinese woodcut. They are white, with holes cut out most probably from laser cutting and also they have some form of embossing to give detail to the flower design.  

Within the context of Brixton these doilies are very average and commonplace. They are disposable, which is a word I would immediately associate with Brixton. There is an enormous amount of Fast Food outlets in the town centre and everywhere you look is excessive amounts of packaging. There's several bins and yet there's still rubbish overflowing in some of them and people have clearly just resorted to chucking their rubbish on the floor. Even in the restaurants its paper disposable table cloths. Moreover, the packaging says they're perfect 'for throwing parties' and all over Brixton there's flyers for club nights and events. There's also an eclectic range of music drifting from somewhere on every street corner.

I come across a pop-up gallery in Brixton Village Market which is exhibiting 'Consciousness Field' by Maria Lopez. I found this perfect largely due to its pop-up nature for an artwork for me to write about. It is an interactive installation made up of hundreds of pompoms that represent the neurons of the human brain. Words that came to mind were colourful, open, intimate, unique, tucked-away and scattered. The piece is interactive in the way that it is reliant on the visitors' personal views on what consciousness means. With the pens provided you are invited to write your own definition on one of the brain shaped cards that make up the wallpaper. There is a whole wall of peoples' views and it is interesting to see how some views are based on faith whereas as just as many are based on freedom, love and even drug-use; 'Acid reveals the truth' seems to be in quite a prominent position. If this artwork was shown in a different position I can't help but think it wouldn't be as successful because half of its charm is how its just in an empty shop. People are also more inclined to take part and get involved by writing on the cards provided in this location because it seems so intimate and welcoming.