Planet Bugs
Curiosity, contemplation, reflection, and change; these are characteristics of a healthy system which has been absent within society since the industrial revolution. They have been replaced by indifference, detachment, callousness, and repetition leading to the production of items like single use plastics. Scientists are working diligently to find ways to break down and recycle these materials that were created without regard to the planet. Whether it is polystyrene, Styrofoam, as a packaging material, polyurethane which makes cushions, or polyethylene most commonly used for water bottles they are made for one purpose; the convenience of the masses. These ubiquitous materials are so far ingrained into our world that the global fossil layers contain microplastics, and that is what we, the people of the 20th and 21st centuries, will be remembered for. I am utilizing polystyrene and polyethylene plastics as a societal critique within my work making visible the unseen errors of the fast-paced trash abundant world we live in today. Utilizing acetone to melt down Styrofoam is a critique on humanity, pointing out that when the human body is working hard, physically, and begins to sweat, burning fat, acetone is created, so in turn if society worked towards creating a physical difference lessening our uses of these materials we would be moving toward a better future for the generations after us.
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Planet Bugs conversation with Brenden Campbell
Styrofoam is something I have been looking into and working with for a couple of years now so, when this kind of assignment was broached, I attempted to make connections on my own, but could not. Squeak put me in touch with Brenden Campbell, Co-Founder of Planet Bugs in Eugene, Oregon. We had a very long interview about his findings regarding an enzyme that is inside the digestive track of meal worms and their beetle forms that can fully digest polystyrene, which is the main chemical in Styrofoam.
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Planet Bugs is a meal worm farm that uses its meal worms to breakdown food waste so that it does not end up in our landfills but instead provides nutrients to the creatures that feed our chickens and whose waste fertilizes crops. An issue faced by Campbell is that the meal worms that feed on Styrofoam and their feces, or frass, are not marketable because the public does not believe that the plastic has been fully removed from the bug or the frass.
The first collaborative effort between myself and Campbell involves the frass. I, along with Kassie our ceramics tech, have been working on fusion tests and are now making washes to see what water-soluble materials are within the frass. We know from the first fusion tests that the frass has some sort of crystalline structure that becomes glass at high temperatures, now we must figure out exactly what we can make it do!
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The second collaboration will involve me sculpting a figure or two out of repurposed
Styrofoam and taking it to Planet Bugs to allow for the setup of a time-lapse terrarium where we will feed the meal worms the sculptures and allow multiple stages of life and digestion to occur while capturing it on film. This project will take at least five months once installed to be fully finished or eaten and digested by the meal worms during their life cycles.
This link takes you to photos and videos that are the records from Brenden Campbell.
