Recycled cardboard spools from the local recycling center. I picked up a boxful today almost at no cost. The center is an industrial building with dozens of bins full of discarded industrial refuse and parts, a compelling accumulation of stuff that caters the needs of younger students looking for cool materials for their art projects. Beyond the classroom, in the world of design, there is no novelty in making new things out of found things. Famous and not so famous artists predicted this process almost a century ago; and theorists like Charles Jencks eloquently discussed it well afterward (his book “Adhocism: the case for improvisation” published in 1972 is a classic). Yet today, in the first decade of the 21st century, adhocism is still on, more or less coherently supported, and sometimes defended, by a few publications, conferences, design studios and groups, who justify their approach mainly in terms of the environmental benefits of reusing stuff. That is the question, after all: it is not just reusing stuff, it is reusing stuff to make more stuff. How much integrity does adhocism have as a design process, and how environmental is it really? Making things from other things is like painting by numbers: no matter how you get there, the end will be the same. These cardboard spools are exquisitely proportioned, and have intriguing formal attributes. Perhaps their function could be simply to be looked at, not to be reused: a purely inspirational object?
