Planned obsolescence is a term used when a product is designed to eventually fail. A good example of this is an ink cartridge, once it’s empty it must be disregarded.

A large area of planned obsolescence are electronics. According to Consumers International, ‘The lifespan of electronic goods is becoming shorter, with the number of defective appliances replaced within five years increasing from 3.5% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2013.’ A larger market is being produced to recycle these goods.

Using thrown away electronics

Recycling 

Electronics can be recycled but not in the traditional sense. Circuit boards (PCBs) are made of a range of materials but mostly use epoxy resin, fiberglass and copper. Where copper is recyclable, epoxy and fiberglass is not, meaning there is still waste from this form of recycling and only some parts are salvaged.

Upcycling

Upcycling, also known as ‘creative reuse,’ is a form of recycling, using unused parts to create new objects. As these parts are mostly free, lots of artists are using old electronics instead of buying new parts.

Darsha Hewitt

In the recent visiting practitioner lecture with Darsha Hewitt, she went into detail about how she used these old electronics in new creations, talking about planned obsolescence and post growth (populations cannot grow indefinitely on a finite planet).

Disco LED Hack

This project used a toy microphones LED. The LED was programmed to go through the colour spectrum in two ways, a slow transition then into a strobe light effect and repeated these two steps when turned on.

Hooking the LED into a speaker allowed the current to be heard (Link is in the Sources page). I Enjoy the simplicity of this idea and creativity to use an LED circuit in this way.

Electrostatic bell choir

Canada made the switch from analogue television to digital in 2007-2012. Unfortunately most people threw away their analogue TV’s to purchase a new digital one, despite converters being available at the time. This meant there were a lot of analogue televisions around, inspiring this project.

Electrostatic bells (also called franklin bells) were invented in the 1700s, invented by Benjamin Franklin. But these are a more modern approach to this invention, using the interference of the static with the bells to create the bell choir. 

“This static charge agitates the hanging pith balls, causing them to waver and lightly strike the bells”

Quote By Darsha Hewitt

Once again I enjoy the simplicity and result of this piece. Furthermore, this is my favourite Darsha piece aesthetically.

100 Year Old Quicksilver Cloud

This piece is centered around a thyratron, a vacuum tube designed to switch current in industrial systems by heating up a puddle of mercury, moving electrons around in the tube. The blue glow is mercury gas and the noise is the thyratron boiling the mercury. When transistors came around, all thyratrons were replaced but many still work to this day.

The bulb creates an eerie, high pitched buzz over a long period of time which eventually fades. Along with the blue glow this sound installation represents how before planned obsolescence became common practice electronics were built to last, including this 100 year old vacuum tube.

The drone from this installation is unsettling yet calming after a while. Fading in and out, pitch shifting up and down, the bulb flickering as the sound changes. Its interesting to watch and hear. This installation is the first piece of a three part series and I am looking forward to see what the next two are.

I enjoyed Darsha’s talk, how she gave a good insight into planned obsolescence and how to use thrown away electronics for artistic reasons. I feel inspired to go find thrown away electronics and upcycle them into my own sound sculptures.