Belladrum Festival

I was lucky enough to be asked to exhibit some art at Belladrum festival this year. Belladrum is a music festival near Inverness. The idea was to take some bits and bobs up with me and 'skip dive' the festival to see what useful things I could find to do some live art with. I also took up 'The Ironic Chairman' and a few copies of 'The Art of Skip Diving' to display in a pop up gallery by the Hung Gallery based in Inverness. 

I arrived a few days early to set up and take part in a small presentation alongside the other artists in a preview for the press.

Unfortunately there was a health and safety issue with the scaffolding for the gallery resulting in its failure to open the whole weekend.

However, the sun was shining, the music was playing and everyone was having a great time so I spend a lot of time chatting to all sorts of people about my work. Here are a few pictures.

Unpacking the car

Explaining my work at the preview

Taking a break on 'The Ironic Chairman' in the gallery

Outside the gallery (still thinking it would open at some point)

Below are some pictures of festival goers enjoying my book and my chairs

The Art of Skip Diving

"This book is not intended to change people it is here for people that want to change"

The Art of Skip Diving is a book that explores the possibilities of sustainable design and re-cycling. It demonstrates what can be made with no tools or money with the aim to give meaning back to everyday items by putting the time and effort into them yourself. Anyone can do it. It will cost you nothing and the possibilities are endless.

The ebook can be downloaded for free for a limited time from iTunes

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-art-of-skip-diving/id537042043?mt=11

So many uses

Here is a home made 'urban survival kit' all contained in a small mints tin.

Here is a detailed picture of the contents

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moomah/3317037435/

these mint tins have also been made into some very interesting things ranging from martini kits to miniature BBQ's

http://artofmanliness.com/2011/01/30/22-manly-ways-to-reuse-an-altoids-tin/

Survival Board

The guys at Every third Thursday have done it again and this time have made a snowboard pretty much for the things that I have been researching for my project.

Enjoy!

Surfboard

This summer I decided to deign and construct my own surfboard. It is the first one that I have attempted and has been a success as I took it out for its maiden voyage last week and have been for a few shreds since then.
The board was constructed and shaped from a foam blank, I then Fibre glassed it fitted the plugs and gave it a paint job and gloss coat. I will update this post with a video soon clearly showing the making process, but until then here are a few pictures.

A Trophy for a friend

For 4 years now we have been holding a skiing and snowboarding competition for all of the Scottish universities at the dryslope in Aberdeen. Unfortunately one of our riders and a good friend of mine passed away last year so we decided to make a memorial trophy for him.
The base is made from a simple log, cut, sanded and varnished. I had intended to use an old pair of his bindings but they had already been given away for someone to get the good out of them.
The trophy will be on display at the Aberdeen Snowsports centre for years to come ensuring that the memory of James Burn lives on.

jellyfish lifestyle

here are a few short documentaries i have been looking into which clearly show 'urban survival'

1.Quit Job 2.Jump in Bush - episode 1 from Harry Byrne on Vimeo.

1.Quit Job 2.Jump in Bush - episode 2 from Harry Byrne on Vimeo.

What has more than one use?

Whilst brainstorming things we use to survive I remembered the old yellow pages advert.
Used for the wrong reason, or is that the only thing its actually good for these days?

Do we really need money? What do we need to survive?

I'v been looking into what you need to survive in extreme situations caused by climate change, but then today I thought to myself "Im surviving right now" which made me remember a documentary I had seen a while ago by Harry Byrne about 'A relaxing holiday' where he went to Japan for 3 weeks with no money for a 'homeless holiday'.
This has made me start to think about what we actually need to survive or what objects we use for more than one purpose everyday. Eventually perhaps making it possible to survive only on the things in your pockets.

Harry also has some other interesting documentaries on hitch hiking and experimenting with sleeping rough and the aspects of getting by on next to nothing.

Have a look at his blog


http://jellyfishlifestyle.com/videos/japan

Can we survive without money?

Mark Boyle decided to give up money for a whole year, This seems to be a grab way to make people live off the land and reduce their carbon footprint, as in one article in the guardian he states that he refers to them as food metres rather than food miles.
However I do not think that this way of life would be for everyone.

water pebble

The water pebble is an ingenious piece of kit that i have come across recently its sole purpose is to aid in reducing your water consumption when having a shower. it starts by glowing green, then amber, then red; indicating when you should get out the shower. Each day it slowly decreases the time so that you have shorter showers without even noticing and therefore using less water.

http://www.waterpebble.com/

Philips microbial home

The guys at philips have designed a whole heap of fancy new products in a bid to encourage people to 'go green' my favourite is the urban beehive.



take a look at their other new designs

http://www.design.philips.com/about/design/designportfolio/design_futures/design_probes/projects/microbial_home/index.page

Recycling and re-using

Products are now becoming obsolete very fast especially computer technology with things advancing so fast, can we continue to find uses for these items once they have fulfilled their original purpose?
Above is the Macquarium. The shell of an old mac computer modified into a fish tank.
There are more innovative designs at the website below, including such things as sex dolls being used as jackets?

http://www.takepart.com/photos/upcycled-recycled-repurposed-stuff-found-second-life

Al Gore

Looking at climate change I decided to watch a film by Al Gore 'An inconvenient Truth' it is actually very interesting and not as dull as you would imagine.

Here is the trailer

recycled snowboard

This year I have been looking into reducing our carbon footprint so here is a great video from the guys at Signal snowboards who like to experiment with snowboard design, this is the recycled snowboard