Recycling and Upcycling the Old to Create Art with @storybird

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This is something that some may recognize from a previous post. It's a different piece but the same materials and technique. I might find that this could become a series using different materials and even fashion items to create something out of nothing.

Inspiration

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I had a few old cassette tapes from family that I wanted to reuse and turn into a piece of art. I was inspired in this case by chocolate melting. The thought of the swirls and straight lines are cool abstract takes on that. In fact, the color of the tape also makes it look chocolatey. I have a passion for chocolate and this was a really great project to start.

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Process

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The process involved a few different steps. First was pulling out the cassette tape and cutting the right lengths of tape to make the straight pieces. I had taped them on the back of the matte so that when it's flipped, it looks seamless. Anyways, the strips were all cut and taped.

Second step was to swirl the cassette tapes to make it look like swiring chocolate. The way I first tried this was to take the blade of the scissors like one does with ribbon by sliding on the flat side to make it curl. That didn't really work and sort of just tore up the tape. I got it to work by taping one end of the cassette tape to the matte, and twirling it around and around until it felt dense enough to coil.

What I thought was interesting is how you get this structural geometry from it. It has this forklift or scaffolding effect that I rather like.

As a material, the tape really is difficult at times. There are folds that happen at the slightest accidental bend that no longer an be removed. I also have found that the reward outweighs the complexity of working with the material.

Result

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What is interesting is that this beautiful medium of cassette tapes can be interpreted and used in different ways to invoke emotion in art. It has a textural and translucency to it that is very desirable to work with. The end result seems to be quite nice. It's hung up on my wall and has a very modern art effect. But the subtle hint towards old music mediums and the industry makes it more than just an upcycling / recycling project. I think the importance of remembering art history and how people have been able to restore junk or the mundane, and turn it into a desired thing is really profound.

Brings me to Andy Warhol and pop art. This may be another post on it's own. But he was able to bring things as simple as painted images of Campbell's soup cans, and make people want to pay a significant amount of money for them.

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Cacaw!