Scrap/Recycling research

During the winter holidays, I have been gathering resources for my next project, revolving around the idea of recycling, during this time I have been gathering photographs of surfaces and waste, I have also watched a film called Soldier and played a game called Machinarium to look at different ways that scrap can be used and how it is used in forms of media such as films and games.

Machinarium

Machinarium is a point-and-click game developed by Amantia Design, which is also known for the Samorost series, the game is based in a world which is full of scrap, metals and plastics make up the landscape and the characters have similar characteristics, they are robots that look like they have been put together using the scraps of metal that cover the landscape, the buildings that have been built also have a similar feel to them.

The game follows a single robot on a quest to save his friends, which were kidnapped by a group of bullies which call themselves the brotherhood, the game uses drawings to portray the story, the robots do not speak, but make noises instead, the noises indicate a certain feeling that the robots are feeling at certain points or the noises indicate if the character needs to do something to access another area.

Machinarium appears to use a surrealism art style, this is shown in the outlandish environments, using items such as clocks for buildings and showers for fountains, the game appears to have been drawn by hand, using rough lines that go well with the feeling of the environment.

Soldier

Soldier (1998) is a film following a soldier called Todd 3465, a man trained from birth to become an inhuman killing machine, though the film does not focus on it, a large portion of the film is based on a disposal planet, in which waste is disposed of on the surface, with a group of refugees from a ship that crashed years ago and they have been left to fend for themselves, the refugees have built a village from the remains of the ship and with some of the waste that is dumped on the surface, the village itself is largely made up of metal scraps that seem to have come from the ship, they also show that most of the stuff is recycled and reused to grow food and repair the homes and other forms of shelter.

Recycling Research

Recycling is a process in which waste materials are re-used as new products, minimizing the waste of potentially useful materials while reducing the consumption of raw material and energy used to turn the raw material into a specified product, this in turn helps to reduce the volumes of air and water pollution and lower the high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Recycling (a short story)

Recycling is a book by Stephen Livingston, which loosely relates a relationship between a mother and their daughter to the concept of recycling, it shows how the mother acts as if everything is waste due to the past, while the daughter is trying to help her see what can be reused instead of just tossed away.