Christmas Vacation Opening Hours

Monday 19th December 9am - 5pm

Tuesday 20th December 9am - 12 2pm - 5pm

Wednesday 21st December 9am - 5pm

Thursday 22nd December 9am - 5pm

Friday 23rd December CLOSED
until
Tuesday 3rd January 9am - 5pm

Wednesday 4th January 9am - 5pm

Thursday 5th January 9am - 5pm

Friday 6th January 9am - 4pm

Saturday 7th January CLOSED


Normal term time hours resume Monday 9th January 2012


The staff at MoDiP would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and all good wishes for 2012.

Have you see this before?

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 out more about the object click here and you will be taken to the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Coca-cola at 125 years

Coca-Cola: It's the Real Thing.....Coke is It!

A global favourite and a design classic - the carbonated drink and the superbrand

Coca-Cola celebrates its125th anniversary in 2011. Coke has become an important part of our commercial and social culture. Coke’s legendary Santa Claus advertising character, designed by American artist Haddon Sundblom in the 1930s, has become a powerful symbol of the festive season. Coca-Cola’s television advertisements that promise Holidays are Coming are surely the cue for Christmas that many viewers welcome.

 

Coca-Cola on display

 

Whilst the taste of Coke is savored, its packaging, advertising and merchandise is cherished with many fans avidly collecting the myriad of materials available. The Coke can is an important marketing tool where images are displayed upon its surface to give additional flavour to the brand.

MoDiP holds a range of Coca-Cola objects that have been amassed over a number of years, many donated by students and staff. International examples have been brought back from holidays afar whilst promotional items have been secured when they pop up in charity shops and alike. 

 

Let's raise a glass and toast this successful brand – Happy Birthday Coca-Cola.

 

Case One Upper: including sporting and seasonal memorabilia

Case One Lower: The classic design

Case Two Upper: International Coke

Case Two Lower: Including books from the AUCB Library

Case Three Upper: The glamorous side of Coca-Cola

Case Three Lower: Unusual places to find the Coca-Cola logo

Kirsten Hardie (AUB Principal Lecturer & National Teaching Fellow)

   

MoDiP would like to thank the following people for their loans to this exhibiton:

• Kirsten Hardie lent many of the objects on display
• Mathea Fermann Jensen lent the 125th Anniversary bottle
• Chirstian Edwardes lent the stretched bottle
• Paul Gay lent the Yo-Yo
• Susan Lambert  lent the earrings and post card
• Beata Lukasiewicz lent the bottle impression

What is this?

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 out more about the object click here and you will be taken to the online MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Work Rest and Play with Plastics now open

Where would we be without plastics? The material of the modern age, plastics in one form or another have been developed to outperform their natural counterparts. They pervade all aspects of our daily lives, often un-noticed, unseen and unappreciated, from the moment we wake, helping us to perform our daily activities and through the hours of sleep. They enable us to conduct our lives in a more comfortable, efficient, colourful and safe environment than we might without them. Plastics have influenced and enabled developments in technology and their relatively low production costs mean that countless numbers are able to share in the benefits, enjoyment and enrichment they bring to our lives.

This exhibition explores some of the ways plastics have been used when we work, when we are resting and when we play.

Do you know 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)

Do you know 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)

Exhibition changes

The 'You can do it with plastics' exhibition has now finished. Work to install the next exhibition is underway.

'Work Rest & Play with plastics'

will open on 5th December 2011

Pam Langdown

Collections Manager

                     

How students and staff use the collection #6 - Commercial Photography

During my last project (1950s based fashion photo shoot) I approached MODIP to see if I could borrow some items to use as props for my shoot. I wanted to find items from that period to add to the feel of the shoot. They were very welcoming and happy to help me find the right items. There was lots to pick from as the catalogue is very large. I was able to take some of the items I wanted (a 1950s radio, small women's wrist watch and a Box Brownies Camera) on location for the shoot and I think that because of these added props my photo shoot was a real success. In the future I will defiantly be looking to MODIP for individual props to enhance my photography.  

Emma Braun Commercial Photography 

Pam Langdown

Collections Manager

What could this 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)

Postmodernism at the V&A

Just been to Postmodernism at the V&A. It's a remarkable and wonderful exhibition. I've never seen that not-altogether-easy space so well used - with the the giant quotations, the giant screens, the giant  columns, and some very over-sized (and thus Postmodern) artefacts. The labels are beautifully written and really explain what Postmodernisn was and (mainly) wasn't, and they are presented in such an engaging way - I won't spoil the surprise by saying how. And the exhibits are intriguing, funny, clever and, some of them, really gorgeous. Don't miss it!


BUT  I have one tiny grouse. Postmodernism has had a vast influence on design in the high street. In partnership with plastics, it has probably done more than anything else to make our homes colourful and quirky. The exhibition gives us household names in terms of music - you can hear Blondie, David Bowie and Culture Club - so why not show us some of the everyday affordable designs that have been the movement's legacy? There is a little top-end and, even-when-new, very expensive Alessi but I couldn't, for example, spot any cheaper Koziol,  and, while plenty of space is devoted to Michael Graves, his work for the more popular end of the market, for example for Target, is nowhere to be seen.


There was a slight feeling of the exhibition running out of steam as you turn the last corner or two. Could one of those smaller spaces just before you reach the shop not have shown us the stuff we buy that only looks the way it does because postmodernism happened? The V&A did street fashion successfully (if controversially) in Street Style some decade and half ago; is it still resistant to such an approach in terms of product design? Must every artefact have a known designer? Does significant design have to be expensive? And what about things that need power to work? We were shown some prototypes by, was it, Mendini or De Lucchi? They were probably never made but plenty showing the influence of these designers and Memphis more broadly were. The V&A even has such a pink and mauve machine: the very first Dyson vacuum cleaner to hit the market, as it happens in Japan, where it sold for over £1000.


Susan Lambert
Head of the Musem of Design in Plastics

Happy Anniversary Frogger

2011 sees the 30th anniversary of the arcade game Frogger. 

The game was created in 1981 and is a strangely addictive quest to get a frog across a very busy road to the safety of his pond.  You can find out more by visiting the game designer's website www.konami.com.

MoDiP has an early Frogger game in the collection which can be seen on display as part of the Work, Rest and Play with Plastics exhibition which will be opening in the next few weeks.  More news on this exhibition will follow in due course.

Konami's Frogger

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Do you know what this could 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)

Planning for Digitisation

On Friday I presented a case study at the British Library as part of the Planning for Digitisation seminar organised by the British Library Preservation Advisory Centre.

It was a really interesting day and included sessions by Richard Davies of the British Library about Planning for digitisation and Patricia Sleeman, ULCC about [digital] Preservation issues.   I presented a case study which had been written as part of the Look-Here! Project.

Alongside me were some fascinating presentations:

• Dr Nicholas Hiley, British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent, who spoke about a JISC funded project they had recently finished.
• Valeria Carullo, RIBA Library, who introduced us RIBApix.
• James Allen, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, who showed us their amazing digitisation project Treasures of the Bodleian.

I have to confess to having not been to the British Library before and was struck by the vibrancy of the place.  It seemed so alive with people everywhere on laptops and chatting with friends and colleagues.  I would definitely recommend a visit; I just wish I had had more time to explore.

C. G. P. Grey released this image under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Can you 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)

You can do it with plastics

In our current exhibition, You can do it with plastics, you can find out about all the amazing things that designers and manufacturers can do with plastics which are more difficult with other materials. 

One of the subjects we have looked at is the notion of buoyancy.  It is not easy explaining in a text panel how buoyancy works but I have found this animation which makes a good job of it.

You can do it with plastics only has a few more weeks to run so if you want to see it do pop by soon.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Do you know 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)

Do you know 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.

MoDiP presenting at the British Library

At the beginning of November I will be presenting a paper at the British Library as part of their training day on digisiting collections.

They are putting on the training day as many organisations are digitising their collections as a way of providing wider access to books and documents in their collections. 

This day has been designed to give an overview of how to plan for and undertake digitisation of library and archive material. The day will also raise awareness of digital preservation issues. By the end of the day, participants will be able to:

• Explain the benefits of digitising material
• Give examples of the types of materials that are suitable for digitisation
• Identify the issues to be considered when planning for digitisation
• Define what is meant by digital preservation
• Describe the risks to digital objects and explain how digital preservation can address these risks.

http://www.bl.uk/blpac/approaches.html

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Vacation opening hours resumed

The Museum of Design in Plastics is open again for visitors

Monday 9.30am - 5.00pm
Tuesday-Thursday 9.00am - 5.00pm
Friday 9.00am - 4.00pm


Pam Langdown
Collections Manager

Bank Holiday Hours

MoDiP will be closed Friday 26th August to Monday 29th August 2011 for the bank holiday. It will re-open at 9am on Tuesday 30th August.


Pam Langdown
Collections Manager, MoDiP

MoDiP Open as normal

The Library work has been completed and we are open as normal.

Monday - Thursday 9.00 to 17.00
Friday 9.00 to 16.30

Museum closed during library renovation

Due to some renovation work on the interior of the library building in which we are based, MoDiP is not open to the public this week (commencing 8th August), we hope to be open as usual next week.

To make sure you will not be disappointed please contact us to make sure we are open when you plan to visit.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Plastics saves lives

During July 2010, whilst taking part in an endurance cycling event in America, Olympic gold medal winning rower James Cracknell was hit on the back of his head by the wing mirror of a truck travelling at 70 mph.
 
He was knocked off his bike; the damage to his brain changed his personality. His injuries were so severe that if he hadn't have been wearing one vital piece of equipment he would be dead. This piece of equipment is highly controversial many cycling races including the Tour de France insist on it being used and yet you see many cyclists on the road without one.

What saved James' life? A small piece of shock absorbing plastic - a simple piece of moulded expanded polystyrene - watch this video of James telling his own story to find out more:



Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Did you know? # 7

Did you know that Bakelite was developed in 1907 by Belgium born chemist Leo Baekeland, that it was the first wholly synthetic plastic and was heralded as the material of 1000 uses?

Bakelite is a thermosetting plastic made from a compound of phenol formaldehyde and wood filler. It is formed into objects by the application of heat and pressure and once made cannot be melted. Its resistance to electrical current and heat means that it was and still is commonly used for knobs, switches and handles and its ability to be finished with a high shine meant that it was a popular choice for small items of furniture such as radio and television cabinets, heating appliances etc. This material lent itself readily to mass production and although the colour range was limited Bakelite was the material of choice for domestic as well as industrial applications.

A frequent expectation of summer visitors to MoDiP is to see something made of bakelite on display.  More often than not our temporary summer exhibition includes few or no examples of bakelite so in an attempt to address this and so as not to disappoint those who have made the effort to find us, this year we have put together a small display drawn from our own collection and from the Plastics Historical Society collection. 

Included in the display are objects as diverse as a set of stair carpet clips with Art Deco styling,

an electric foot warmer in the shape of a hot water bottle

and a shell cap from WW2.  These objects will be on display until the autumn.

Pam Langdown
(Collections Manager)

Making our horn collection effective

MoDiP was pleased to receive the Worshipful Company of Horners' collection of some 400 items of horn on long term loan last year and are now able to announce that we have received a grant from the Museums Association to make the collection more effective.

Horn is a themoplastic material which means that it becomes pliable when heated and can, therefore, be worked in a way similar to some synthetic plastics. Horn has been worked since paleolithic times but during the last century the craft declined. This led the Horners to adopt the emerging plastics industry in 1943 and it is for this reason the Company has chosen MoDiP, the only accredited museum with a

focus on plastics, with which to lodge its wonderful collection.

The aim of our Effective Collections grant is to increase understanding and appreciation of horn and its associated crafts and to increase access to this collection in particular. We wish to do this by lending small groups of artefacts to museums with a wide variety of specialisms including fashion and costume, military history, rural life, health and medicine, and portraiture. 

For example fashion museums might be interested in borrowing back combs, shoe horns, and brooches, whereas military museums might like to have the opportunity to show off a selection of powder horns.

Our hope is that this way a wide range of people, who, although not interested specifically in horn, will come to understand and appreciate its relevance and contribution
to their existing area of interest.

We are to be advised on this project by two consultants. Stuart Davies,who will lead in terms of curatorial expertise, and Caroline Reed who will lead in terms of methodology for reviewing the collection. You can find out more about Stuart at http://www.sdaconsultants.co.uk/. For information on Caroline's method please refer to: http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/collections-link/collections-management/reviewing-significance

Work will begin in earnest in July when the full team will meet for the first time. But if you could be interested in borrowing a small collection of horn material do get in touch.

Susan Lambert, (Head of MoDiP)

Isnaini Nash - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Isnaini Nash - BA (Hons) Fine Art, year 2

My research has led me to consider the macro / micro dichotomy of human existence on Earth in this century. Our known natural environment enlarges continuously and we have an increasing understanding of the vastness of the Universe through knowledge and observation of planetary systems, stars and galaxies. The science of physics increases our understanding of matter and it’s composition; ever decreasing particles of atoms, sub atomic particles, quarks and tachyons. I see these, often minute physical components of our world made vivid when set against a background of historical theories of existential philosophies and the art theories of the sublime.

Caspar’s luna eclipse 2010. Resin, acetate, acrylic and oil paint

With aspirations to become a jeweller before studying Fine Art, my work resembles glowing, glittering jewels. Small, crafted, other-worlds encapsulating moments of stillness. Contemplation through looking is my intention. I use resin as a material to achieve an outcome of transmitting and refracting light.

I am interested in reviving Romantic ideals established in the nineteenth century as
pertinent to the present. I can feel the cracking of our commercially driven world as I
look to a future where capitalism is irrelevant.

Caspar’s luna eclipse 2010. Resin, acetate, acrylic and oil paint

Masters of the Universe 2010. Resin, acetate, oil paint

Landing on Planet Mongo 2010. Resin, acetate and linseed oil

Yves Findling - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Yves Findling - MA Illustration

The series of characters are the result of years of observing and drawing people in places like cafes, the subway and other public spaces. Putting them into the third dimension was a major step in my artistic development. The use of plasticine gives me the possibility to model the sculptures very precisely and over a long period of time because the material does not dry. I use special modelling material which is suitable for the use in animation and I created two episodes with my characters "Pimm & Pomm" which you can see online. If you are interested in my former work and the work I create during the MA course please visit my website: http://www.yvesfindling.de/

Diva

DJ Andreas Vogel  & DJ Konrad Kuhn

Swimmer

Constantin

Veteran

Fat Cat

Julia Flatman - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Julia Flatman - Senior Associate Lecturer, Fine Art

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Julia’s current research explores the notion of ‘Material Thinking’. This is the physical exploration of ‘material’ as a means of understanding and communicating beyond language, by exploring the inherent qualities of materials, process and form and their potential to mobilize memory and convey meaning.

Julia makes work about and in response to human vulnerability; the inspiration is often a story, an old wives’ tale or a superstition. By exploiting the emotional connotations and varying the use and context of objects away from their familiar references, she hopes to engage other possibilities with no settling conclusions.

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Caister Men Never Turn Back, 2011

Fran Norton - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Fran Norton - MA Fine Art

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

Literally drawing in, into and on the physical environment, my mark-making develops the interrelation of sculpture, found object and artist with the material world, and provides a means to decipher my own impulses and needs.  Arising from the multiple roles, activities and environments of everyday life, my work references motherhood, gender, abjection and the body.  I aspire to have no delineation between life and work.  For me the personal is wholly integrated with creative practice as I give tangible form to my obsessions, thoughts and emotions. 

Thinking about what I am sensing and feeling at the point of creation, I recognise core elements registering externally in my methods, imagery, form, process and behaviour. Associating these with the balance of the controlled and uncontrolled, conscious and unconscious, innate and attained, led the path of my research to Neuroscience.  I have been concerned with what really happens, in terms of physiology and cognition, when we make or respond to art and the universality of  'art as behaviour'.  

Using strategies of reversal, sculpting and burning I transformed the insubstantial into palpable objects engaging with real space.  Developing the gesture as a form of printing, I squeezed, caressed, moulded and baked materials chosen for personal resonance including found geology, wax, plants, hair, porcelain and polymer clays.  Reconciling process, material and mode of presentation with subject, my own imprint, visceral connection and process of ‘touch’ became an essential part of the work. The tactile spines, skins and fleshy forms that resulted, are imbued with a sense of body and self that summon up contradictory associations and my own compulsive behaviour.

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

The Derma Series, 2008, polymer clay

Fiona Lake - You can do it with plastics

The following is part of the response to the You can do it with plastics request by AUB staff and students.

Fiona Lake - BA(Hons) Fine Art, part time year 3

Someone’s Breath

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, good or evil, we’re all fundamentally the same and we will all be forgotten – that’s the truly radical nature of transience,

Christian Boltanski, 2006

The title, Someone’s Breath, refers to the universal as opposed to the individual. It is anonymous and could therefore belong to anyone, but it is definitely the breath of someone’s son or someone’s daughter.  It does not have a monetary value based on celebrity, (as with Manzoni’s breath and excrement), but it has been given value through its preservation, temporal suspension and gallery presentation because ultimately it is, or will be, someone’s last remaining breath after death.

Using a paper bag to collect breath draws on the tradition of emotional minimalism. I hope that many viewers will link it with blowing into bags and popping them, as children. The bag then becomes a memory trigger for childhood and a life lived. Life and death, presence and absence are inexorably linked. The bag filled with breath also represents the act of breathing; of living.

The resin casing enables the indefinite preservation, or mummification, of the breath to take place. The layering effect of the resin is mimetic of ancient rock formations and enhances the visual sense of timelessness.

Someone’s Breath

Someone’s Breath