We extract minerals from the ground to forge ourselves tools. Eventually, like the handaxes of prehistory, our tools will become artifacts.
Lying on the road, a part of a car's suspension system.
Unit cost: £27. Cost to replace: £80 - £150.
Will a future species who uncovers our discarded objects think that their broken aspects were a result of our using them, or will they think these qualities were part of the items' design?
To make a spring, it is first heated to 920°C.
This process tempers it before plunging into oil to cool. It is then reheated to 450°C to establish its ductility.
But while an anthropologist might consider an object in relation to a human-centric functional use, how does the object see the world? Can we see and hear the world from an object's perspective?
To delve into this spring coil's listening, we hear the river through the coil's material resonances. It's a way to listen up-close, maybe hearing the sonic reverberations of when the coil was quenched in oil during its manufacturing.
There is a thin crust forming on the planet.
It is made of small particles of metal, plastic, chemicals, and nuclear waste. Some say this crust will distinguish the Anthropocene from other epochs.
Can we avoid this accumulation?
By listening to our discarded objects and discovering alternative realities for them we can repurpose them rather than sending them to the landfill.
For instance,
A fork with its prongs bent wildly could be plucked, transforming it into an instrument, or it could be used as a material for sculpting.
A spring coil that has lost its flex and fallen on the roadside could be resonated to create ethereal metallic sounds.
Or an old cast iron frying pan that had a plastic flipper melted into it could be transformed into a directional speaker.
So we can listen to Vivaldi's 'Spring' in motion.
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To breathe new life into something old.