What a fruitful first part of the (e)wasteful installation design trajectory! 

With a visionary team of volunteers we brainstormed, reflected and shared our thoughts. We placed ourselves into the minds of good and bad designers, economists, consumers and politicians. We invented fairy tales about planned obsolescence (almost as ridiculous as reality!). With the help of Gust, who is leading the project, we explored how vacuum cleaners and other electronics are designed to fail. Just one piece of plastic breaking is enough to make a vacuum cleaner entirely useless – who designed this?! We dreamt about machines that represent planned obsolescence. 

The crazy ideas kept on coming. It wasn’t always easy to make a decision, to choose the best of many wild ideas, or to turn our uncontainable imagination into more concrete plans. But we succeeded. We have a plan. This is the plan: 

We will create a machine that lays bare the (intentionally) short lifespan of electronics and the destructive impact of our take, make, waste economic system on our planet. Visually it will be clear that the machine is slowly depleting the earth, whilst the conveyor belt strains under a growing mountain of e-waste. The aim is for the installation to be interactive. For example, passers-by will be able to speed up or slow down how fast electronics are becoming obsolete.

Now it’s time for action! In the 2nd part of the trajectory we’re going to build the installation out of e-waste. Ready to get stuck in and get your hands dirty? 🔧 In August we’re gathering for two days in the headquarters of Nerdlab to create the installation. Weren’t involved before but excited to join? Fill in this doodle to pick the dates and send an email with your contact details to connor.cashell[a]catapa.be.

Let’s build this thing!