What could it be?

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or to find the answer click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

BXL photographic archive #0044

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities.  The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s.  The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time.  We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive.  If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows cable laying from a ship.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--0408

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others.  It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Guess what this is

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or to find the answer click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

BXL photographic archive #0043

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities.  The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s.  The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time.  We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive.  If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows a bottle being designed.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--00941

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others.  It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

What could this possibly be?

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or to find the answer click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

BXL photographic archive #0042

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities.  The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s.  The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time.  We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive.  If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows sheet material being printed.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--0484

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others.  It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Guess the object

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or to find the answer click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Skeuomorphic plastics

I asked a fellow PhD student, Kimberley Chandler, to write a post for us following a recent workshop.  She used an item from the collection to illustrate the idea of skeuomorphism.

‘Plastic’, wrote Roland Barthes in 1957, ‘is in essence the stuff of alchemy.’ Writing at a time when the character of this ‘miraculous substance’ was relatively unknown, Barthes was fascinated by its transformative impulse. He admired its ‘quick-change artistry’, from fluid to fixed form, and its countless iterations: here, a bucket, and there, a jewel. [1]

Barthes’ also recognised its more prosaic nature, and lauded the simple artifice of common household objects. For me, this sentiment is materialised most acutely in the Bakelite electric bed warmer, 1943 (below). Fashioned from Bakelite, an early form of plastic, this quasi-bottle exhibits those qualities associated with warming the bed: the classic shape with textured sides, sealed with a stopper, and with a subtle bulge that reveals its hot, fluid interior. 

PHSL : 3

   
Yet this hot-water bottle is, in fact, electric and without water: ‘Just slip into the bed and plug in.’ The electric cord interrupts the magic; like the strings that betray the puppet. It is no longer a pliable object, but brittle and unforgiving; and moulded from Bakelite, it is, in effect, an imitation.  

This electric bed warmer – with its familiar form, yet less familiar touch – presents a curious juncture in the history of Bakelite, a moment when its performance as a new material was being tested. Yet, it also embodies the clash between conservatism and innovation, between tried and tested and the future of plastic. And it does this by way of the skeuomorph, through the direct imitation of a hot-water bottle, but in an altogether different material. It is less about deception, and more about transition: a way to usher in the new.  

Writing in the 1940s, two chemists, Yarsley and Couzens, acknowledged the inexhaustible possibilities of this new material in their futurist account of a world filled with plastics.[2] Their fanciful projections take narrative form in ‘Plastic Man’ living in a ‘Plastic Age’, whose every possession is moulded in plastic; and who, no doubt, goes to bed at night clutching his Bakelite electric water bottle.

I would like to thank Kimberley Chandler for taking the time to write this post.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator) 

Kimberley Chandler is a writer and researcher in contemporary craft, design, and architecture. She is the recipient of an AHRC-funded studentship in ‘Design Agency: Activism, Innovation, Transformation’ at the University of Brighton. 

[1] Barthes, Roland, ‘Plastic’, in Mythologies, New York: Hill and Wang, 1957, pp. 97-99
[2] Yarsley V. E., and Couzens E. G., Plastics, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1945, pp. 154-158

BXL photographic archive #0041

In 2010, MoDiP was donated a large archive of images relating to a single company. Bakelite Xylonite Ltd, also known as British Xylonite Ltd or BXL, was possibly one of the first British firms to successfully manufacture a plastics material in commercial quantities.  The company was established in 1875 and after a long history went into liquidation in the late 2000s.  The images we have in the collection are concentrated around the 1960s through to the 1980s and show us glimpses of the manufacturing process, products and the company’s employees during this time.  We plan to share an image each week to give a flavour of the archive.  If you want to see more you can view the whole collection on our website.

This week’s image shows a Hycan undergoing pressure testing.

To get a better view of the image and find out more have a look at it on our website http://www.modip.ac.uk/artefact/bxl--0335

We are still working on the documentation of the archive, some of the images we know more about than others.  It would be fantastic if we could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge, if you know anything about the company or specific images it would be good to hear from you.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)