Radiance
2023
In collaboration with Xin Cheng
Pyramid Club
Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington)
"Every skyscraper in every city on the planet, just for starters, contains hundreds of tons of iron, steel, aluminum, and copper. In a deindustrial society, this is all raw material ready to be cut apart by salvage crews, hauled away on oxcarts, and turned into knives, hoes, plowshares, and other useful things. The same is just as true of most of the other artifacts of 20th and 21st century technology, from cars to tin cans to the rebar that runs through every concrete structure in the industrial world."
- John Michael Greer, The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age (2008)
Since the start of 2022, Xin Cheng and Adam Ben-Dror have been seeking out and practicing the know-how for transforming the material extravagance and detritus of the industrial age into small, beautiful and sometimes useful things. Wandering through sustainable living centres, commercial buildings set for renovation, e-waste recycling organisations, scrap metal yards and op-shops, they gathered materials, stories, tactics and hosted conversations and workshops under the project Local Making (www.localmaking.org).
This exhibition presents some prototypes for lighting devices made from waste.
Thanks to the Sustainability Trust and Earthlink Incorporated for supporting this project.
In order of Appearance:
- E-Waste disassembly Earthlink recycling centre, Taita, Te Awa Kairangi (Lower Hutt) 2022 Single Channel Video 10 minutes
- Twin Joule Thief and Free form Joule Thief circuits
- Shelf: Overview
- Lamp 01: LED (Light Emitting Diode) segment harvested from dead energy saver lightbulb, lithium batteries from old laptop, copper wire from transformer.
- Joule Thief 01: Flat AAA battery, battery holder, fairy lights, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, capacitor, transistor. All components recovered from ‘dead’ energy saver lightbulb. [A Joule Thief, technically known as a Minimalist Self Oscillating Voltage Booster is a circuit able to amplify (or steal) the remaining energy in a flat battery enough to make LED lights blink. The circuit is so frugal in its use of the remaining battery energy that it will continue blinking for years to come.] LED (Light Emitting Diode) segment harvested from dead energy saver lightbulb, lithium batteries from old laptop, copper wire from transformer.
- Lamp 02: Bamboo battery holder cradle, yellow LED, Copper wire, flat AA batteries.
- Homopolar motor: Battery, Neodymium magnet, copper wire
- Coconut Joule Thief: Coconut shell, flat AA battery, fairy lights, LED module from dead downlight, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, battery terminal springs, capacitor, transistor.
- Twin Joule Thief: flat AAA battery, white LED, blue LED, glass surround from dead halogen, prototyping board, jumper cables, hand wound coils on ferrite toroids, resistors, capacitors, transistors.
- Free form Joule Thief circuit: Flat AAA battery, coloured LEDs, copper wire, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, capacitor, transistor.
- Head torch: Obsolete/broken incandescent head-torch, LED module from ‘dead’ down-light, lithium batteries from old laptop, Mentos tin, wire from old ethernet cable, switch.
- Shelf: Detail
- LCD screen: Screen recovered from obsolete laptop and brought back to life with new video driver circuit. Copper wire from CRT television, transformer.
E-Waste disassembly, Earthlink recycling centre, Taita, Te Awa Kairangi (Lower Hutt) 2022 Single Channel Video 10 minutes
- Joule Thief Schematic: Marker pen on acrylic sheet from inside of flatscreen TV.
2023
In collaboration with Xin Cheng
Pyramid Club
Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington)
"Every skyscraper in every city on the planet, just for starters, contains hundreds of tons of iron, steel, aluminum, and copper. In a deindustrial society, this is all raw material ready to be cut apart by salvage crews, hauled away on oxcarts, and turned into knives, hoes, plowshares, and other useful things. The same is just as true of most of the other artifacts of 20th and 21st century technology, from cars to tin cans to the rebar that runs through every concrete structure in the industrial world."
- John Michael Greer, The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age (2008)
Since the start of 2022, Xin Cheng and Adam Ben-Dror have been seeking out and practicing the know-how for transforming the material extravagance and detritus of the industrial age into small, beautiful and sometimes useful things. Wandering through sustainable living centres, commercial buildings set for renovation, e-waste recycling organisations, scrap metal yards and op-shops, they gathered materials, stories, tactics and hosted conversations and workshops under the project Local Making (www.localmaking.org).
This exhibition presents some prototypes for lighting devices made from waste.
Thanks to the Sustainability Trust and Earthlink Incorporated for supporting this project.
In order of Appearance:
- E-Waste disassembly Earthlink recycling centre, Taita, Te Awa Kairangi (Lower Hutt) 2022 Single Channel Video 10 minutes
- Twin Joule Thief and Free form Joule Thief circuits
- Shelf: Overview
- Lamp 01: LED (Light Emitting Diode) segment harvested from dead energy saver lightbulb, lithium batteries from old laptop, copper wire from transformer.
- Joule Thief 01: Flat AAA battery, battery holder, fairy lights, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, capacitor, transistor. All components recovered from ‘dead’ energy saver lightbulb. [A Joule Thief, technically known as a Minimalist Self Oscillating Voltage Booster is a circuit able to amplify (or steal) the remaining energy in a flat battery enough to make LED lights blink. The circuit is so frugal in its use of the remaining battery energy that it will continue blinking for years to come.] LED (Light Emitting Diode) segment harvested from dead energy saver lightbulb, lithium batteries from old laptop, copper wire from transformer.
- Lamp 02: Bamboo battery holder cradle, yellow LED, Copper wire, flat AA batteries.
- Homopolar motor: Battery, Neodymium magnet, copper wire
- Coconut Joule Thief: Coconut shell, flat AA battery, fairy lights, LED module from dead downlight, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, battery terminal springs, capacitor, transistor.
- Twin Joule Thief: flat AAA battery, white LED, blue LED, glass surround from dead halogen, prototyping board, jumper cables, hand wound coils on ferrite toroids, resistors, capacitors, transistors.
- Free form Joule Thief circuit: Flat AAA battery, coloured LEDs, copper wire, hand wound coil on ferrite toroid, resistors, capacitor, transistor.
- Head torch: Obsolete/broken incandescent head-torch, LED module from ‘dead’ down-light, lithium batteries from old laptop, Mentos tin, wire from old ethernet cable, switch.
- Shelf: Detail
- LCD screen: Screen recovered from obsolete laptop and brought back to life with new video driver circuit. Copper wire from CRT television, transformer.
E-Waste disassembly, Earthlink recycling centre, Taita, Te Awa Kairangi (Lower Hutt) 2022 Single Channel Video 10 minutes
- Joule Thief Schematic: Marker pen on acrylic sheet from inside of flatscreen TV.
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