IMAGES and THINGS

Images and Things The Mazda UU8 Valve – Sculpture or Trash

The Mazda UU8 valve is a component within the workings of early television and radio sets. These appliances ranged from the early sixties to the mid seventies, until the birth of the Promethean-like in their capacity of workmanship, the MICROCHIP. This particular valve that I have chosen regulated the temperature within the TV/radio set and without it, no power.

The valve has aesthetic values on several levels that contained in this assignment I will try to explain. These levels work on varied relevancies that embrace class and social history, varied dimensions of art movements and something that interests and influences my own art-work; what is considered garbage and ultimately what is historical treasures.

These components would have probably cost the consumer a significant amount of money and thinking how many people had television sets, only the middle classes or the people who were moneyed had the luxury within themselves, have to purchased such items. It is a subtle change in technological and historical events that I am now able to find and purchase such items in a junk shop for a few pence, where they were so prolifically made and where thought of as a local industry. It weren't but a few months ago that the factory, Mullards, a factory who manufactured these items and shipped the valves worldwide, closed for business.

What was so utilitarian in nature is now something that I hold in my hand and think of as a sculpture that has Constructivist leanings and structural values encompassing its being. This object was made out of a very fragile substance, which was glass, and had inert gas such as Argon blown into it. The production of the valve was made in a very industrialized environment and had many a skilled hand working on the product.

The first impact that this item had on me was the packaging and instructions that contained it. One of my many influences and artistic leanings is the Pop Art movement of the mid-sixties. I enjoy the work of Andy Warhol, Claus Olderburg and Robert Rauschenburg also the work of Robert Indiana and, from an earlier period of art history, Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters.

The reasoning behind this impact was how the colours and the design of the packaging brought out a sense of nostalgia for what was the past and that the overall composition of this purchase was considered. Today we buy a product and don’t really think of the container.

We want the product without the hassle of opening up and seeing what we have got. I enjoy the concept of Instructional Design and as Paul Mijkensaar so perfectly presented in his mighty tome, Open Here, the beauty of product package design doesn’t have to be underwhelming and wallflowerlike. Within the packaging of this valve is a mini physics lesson in valve technology, an early prototype of instructional teaching and pictorial plans .

As I hinted on earlier, this piece of valve technology would have a dual effect on the general public. There will be one camp who would consider this thing as an item of out-dated, useless and tired piece of sentimental rubbish, and on the other side, they may think it of a piece of history and an interesting piece of radio and televisual paraphernalia. There may be more inclination of regarding this thing as rubbish but with the correct context and artistic licence that can be applied, it will rise above the garbage title and recover the aesthetic tag that it does deserve.

So, as Lea Vergnine points out in When Trash Becomes Art, we are a fickle breed of animal . When new technology, fashion or science is produced, we simply file away what was ala mode previously. Take the stick, when the axe was invented the stick was passed on. The valve was used extensively and then the microchip was invented and now we all have gone digital, the time-code for analogue was given it’s window in the diary of technology annihilation.

What are we going to do with millions of defunct pieces of oil and glass. We don’t have enough spaces left in this country so we’ll ship them of to the developing world, there’s enough space and it’s not in our backyard. Hopefully, they’ll find use of such items or have their children’s little fingers dissecting and recycling the silver and other precious commodities within the throwaways. But, as a nation we can blot out this information, read the next column of news or stare blankly at the television.

We can afford to upgrade, buy the next new thing and discard whatever we consider unworthy. The junk shop, second-hand stores and charity shops are full of items that are not required anymore. Are these items now relegated to the point of being regarded as trash. What of the antique fairs, car-boot sales and the auction rooms, it only takes a little bit of provenance and the right kind of retail setting and the tables would be turned.

It is true though that a bargain could be happened upon in the bustling aisles of a car boot sale on a cold December morning, a diamond in the sea of zircona, but what of the price you may pay in the cosy glow of the middle classes and the auction room.

Cornell amongst others used junk in their work to achieve whatever goals that they may have set themselves. Trash of all descriptions are assimilated and given its place. Used ticket stubs, newspaper, glass and wire are just a handful of items that are been allowed to over come the trash can. With intelligence and a depth of artistic merit, one may make a detour of the farce that I will call elevation due to class. The humble, argon-filled, glass valve can transpose itself from some form of technological novelty and piece of useless rubbish to something quite beautiful, a historical document and a potential component of structural collage.

Images and Things The Connection of Eight Items

The logical point to start this portion of writing would to make links and some albeit tenuous cross pollinations. All but two items where chanced upon in antique fairs, junk shops and charity stalls and the two that weren’t, I have had for a number of years and the way that they came into my possession, I just don’t know.

1: Mazda UU8 Valve
2: The Micro-Chip
3: Stereo 8-Track Cartridge
4: Beta-Max Videotape
5: The 5 inch Computer Disk
6: Nintendo Games Cartridge
7: TDK C90 Music Cassette
8: The Plectrum-Style Guitar Book.

I have chosen these in accordance with the shifting plateaus of the technological revolution that we all inhabit at the moment. We find the zeitgeist, the zenith and the eventual nadir of what we think of as a super improved formula on how to inhabit our lives. These are the sizable objects that find their path into the realm of uselessness and curiosity.

The Mazda valve was found in such a place of curiousness, besides old Tiffany lamps and broken bicycles. Originally, it was a needful thing within the scope of technology and now it isn’t wanted anymore, shire-horse like object that is discarded due to human needs.

This, in time, bred the super-being that is the Microchip. This little, often one inch in area, can control and formulate so many operations that in reality usurped the many valves that was needed to function whatever device were being used.

Music at home and home recording is a multi faceted subject upon itself. The selection process for this inclusion of the 8-track is an interesting one. The downsizing of 12 inch tapes to the humble C90’s has many corpses to consider.

The 8-track paved the way for home music to be played in the car or when we are perambulating the pathways. The Cartridge system was a little bulky so technology waved its wand and produced the more slicker music cassette. On this small and mighty beast we could record mix-tapes and ourselves and they were more portable. Hence, the Walkman, this is the father of portable musical devices, without the cassette, no MP3 players or I-Pods.

The BetaMax was a victim of its own dimensions, this paved the way for the V-HS, the DVD and now, whatever. The 5 inch computer disk is such an iconic symbol of eighties technology. At that time the disks were used for storage of data but the memory wasn’t strong enough for images so now we have the USB device.

When Nintendo brought out the games cartridge and gave the world, SuperMarionation, it was on par with television going colour from black and white. The graphics opened our imagination but now time has moved on with the Wii etc.

So, now it’s the guitar book, the originator of all the above. The first hit single was indeed sheet music, a military rag. These items can still be bought and unlike previous items, will not be left for dead.