Andy Vagg

From Wiki.a-wa-re.com

Frank Zappa Project - visit: www.andyvagg.com/frankzappaproject

linux.conf.au 2009 – Hobart, Tasmania

Frank Zappa Project (one hundred word blurb: final for catalogue)

Imagine the millions of people that travel the world each year, attending conferences, living out of suitcases, staying in hotels where daily needs, like shampoo & conditioner, are provided in small, single-use containers. Imagine if all these shampoo & conditioner bottles could be recycled to create something beneficial, like casings for laptop computers for needy children. I need your help to collect as many bottles as possible, to demonstrate what one single conference can generate in just one week. Support the Frank Zappa Project today: Drop off your hotel shampoo & conditioner bottles at the Hobart linux.conf.au 2009.

Artist Biography: Andy Vagg (final for catalogue)

My art focuses on the unsustainable practices of consumerism and capitalism. My artworks are made from post-consumer materials, sourced from local landfill or personal use.

Background to the Frank Zappa Project:

Have you ever heard that if you collect the aluminium ring pulls from a drink can, that they can be used to provide artificial limbs for land mine victims in Africa? There have been a number of hoaxes in recent decades involving large amounts of usually small, seemingly worthless items being collected to aid some unfortunate person, usually with some type of medical assistance. They are certainly not new, not a side product of the internet, as they have been circulating since the 1950s and seem to be most effective by word of mouth.

Although they do not involve money directly, they have inconvenienced and disappointed many people. There have been the occasional cases where some companies have honoured the scams, no doubt for a bit of good will publicity. It is most interesting because people are quick to take up these ideas as they appear an easier and quicker way to raise money. I guess you could say they are a well intentioned get-rich-quick-scheme.

The real irony is that, if instead of collecting the ring pulls, you collected the whole can, you could actually raise a considerable amount of money, though you would still have to collect a lot of cans. Recycled aluminium is still only worth so much. The other irony is that many of these small items, like bottle tops and ring-pulls are considered worthless and are thrown away, instead of being recycled. Modern recycling plants can handle all sorts of materials, and a tonne of aluminium ring-pulls is worth as much as a tonne of aluminium cans.

Items like small shampoo & conditioner bottles from hotels and motels are still most likely to be thrown away rather than recycled, although they certainly are recyclable. It is a question of their perceived value. People perceive two and three litre plastic bottles as more valuable because they are bigger. But like aluminium, a tonne of plastic is a tonne of plastic.

This plastic like all plastic has the potential to make other plastic items, eg. laptop computer shells. Laptop computers are something we value, but we would throw away a tiny shampoo bottle without a thought. But if we knew that the plastic from that shampoo bottle was not only going to help provide a case for a new laptop computer, but one for a poor child in an impoverished society, then we would give that bottle great value!

So, although there is no direct link between aluminium ring-pulls and artificial limbs it is a feasible link, as aluminium is recovered after use and pooled back into the production cycle. Plastic, too, is collected in all manner of shapes and sizes, then pooled back into production in all manner of ways. So, there may not be any direct link between hotel shampoo and conditioner bottles and lap top computers for children in impoverished countries, but the link, however tenuous, is still possible.

For more information visit: www.andyvagg.com/frankzappaproject