The Unuselessness of Chindogu

Flip kindly forwarded this explanation of Chindogu, and a few links for inspiration/further clarification:

the 10 tenets of chindogu---

1. a chindogu cannot be for real use.

it is fundamental to the spirit of chindogu that inventions claiming chindogu status must be, from a practical point of view, (almost) completely useless. if you invent something which turns out to be so handy that you use it all the time, then you have failed to make a chindogu. try the patent office.

2. a chindogu must exist.

you are not allowed to use a chindogu, but it must be made. you have to be able to hold it in your hand and think: 'I can actually imagine someone using this. almost.' in order to be useless, it must first be.

3. inherent in every chindogu is the spirit of anarchy.

chindogu are man-made objects that have broken free from the chains of usefulness. they represent freedom of thought and action: the freedom to challenge the suffocating historical dominance of conservative utility; the freedom to be (almost) useless.

4. chindogu are tools for every day life.

chindogu are a form of nonverbal communication understandable to everyone, everywhere. specialized or technical inventions, like a three-handled sprocket loosener for drainpipes centered between two under-the sink cabinet door (the uselessness of which will only be appreciated by plumbers), do not count.

5. chindogu are not for sale.

chindogu are not tradable commodities. if you accept money for one you surrender your purity. they must not even be sold as a joke.

6. humor must not be the sole reason for creating a chindogu.

the creation of chindogu is fundamentally a problem-solving activity. humor is simply the by-product of finding an elaborate or unconventional solution to a problem that may not have been that pressing to begin with.

7. chindogu is not propaganda.

chindogu are innocent. they are made to be used, even though they cannot be used. they should not be created as a perverse or ironic comment on the sorry state of mankind.

8. chindogu are never taboo.

the international chindogu society has established certain standards of social decency. cheap sexual innuendo, humor of a vulgar nature, and sick or cruel jokes that debase the sanctity of living things are not allowed.

9. chindogu cannot be patented.

chindogu are offerings to the rest of the world, they are not therefore ideas to be copyrighted, patented, collected and owned. as they say in spain, 'mi chindogu es tu chindogu'.

10. chindogu are without prejudice.

chindogu must never favor one race or religion over another. young and old, male and female, rich and poor, all should have a free and equal chance to enjoy each and every chindogu.

http://www.designboom.com/history/useless.html

http://home.bawue.de/~jtesch/chindogu.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindogu

http://chindogu.com/chindogu/

http://www.pitt.edu/~ctnst3/chindogu.html  - rb notes: I'm not authorized to view this page, so screw him, really

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393317439/104-1349668-0488721?v=glance

Also try searching Chindogu videos on google and you'll come up with a couple of fun pieces.

I Got Yer Ahtist Cahds Right Here

Tuesday's project got everybody going, that's fer dang sure. I got home before I could actually pay attention to the cards folk were passing around (yes, I did pore through a stack of everyone's work and select one to trade for my pitiful scribbling - a few more uneven trades like that, and I'll be rich! bwah-hah!) but once I got home and actually looked at them, I was sorely amazed and truly abashed. Mary took scanned photos she wasn't happy with (I'd have been thrilled, akshully) and chopped em up in to card-size bites, so she had plenty of time left over to help me figure out what to write on the backs of mine. Betsey glued gew-gaws and strung a few with a coated thread, Leslie stamped and collaged in a Wiz of Oz theme, Flip modified some Topps baseball cahds (a Flip-Topps production?), Pam A ahtfully stamped cahds smartly preprinted on their backsides, and Pam P, under great time pressure, carved a bunny and three eggs for some mystical religous holiday theme. An impressive production, more energetic than most of our meetings, to be sure. Good idea, thanks to Bitsy.

But one reason why my brane wazn't engaged in the end-of-meeting tradation process was Pam P's potential depahture from the group, as she moves back to the homestead enmired in healthcare and home repair issues, likely too busy & far away to make a special trip up and back for our frippery! We need to put our stamping caps on (the idea of a thinking cap, for me, seemed futile) and consider alternative meeting plans (reserve a room at the BC library?, meet earlier in the day?, all meet remotely on www.blackboard.com?, etc.) to make it possible to keep contact with Ms.P. Them with ideas should lemme know, and I'll filter them through some mystical decision-making process.

As far as future meetings, until/unless we come up with a useful compromise, the next meetings are:

[Tues 4 May 2010]: Game Night, with Song Lyric Recitation
(BTW: The April meeting was cast aside like a thing that was tossed over there). We will have gaming and entertainment: between rounds of some parlor game or another [Pictionary, Balderdash, Find-my-Foot, etc. - of shortish duration), members will recite (talk, NOT sing) lyrics to popular songs, a la Steve Allen (he was on TV in the 1890s) or, more recently, Christopher Walken in some YouTube thingus. There will be no wagering. On the game, either. More details as we all root through our game shelves and/or record collections (or www.lyrics.com and the like).

[Tues 1 June 2010]: The hairs on my chinny-chin- Chindogu
In a bid to keep the creative energies flowing, it was decided to bring back the idea of preparing "homework" for a meeting as long as it was for something as entertaining as Chindogu - the last Chindogu event was so popular, the result seemed to make the idea of homework worth it. A separate mailing with a reminder (or inspirational guide) about Chindogu will arrive in your emailbox right after this one. Schedulig this more than two months in advance was an attempt to spread the homework out over a longer time period, but we all know we're going to be working all night on 31 May, anyway. Points will be deducted if you injure yourself in the manufacture of your unuseless project (fingers WILL be counted).

Remember: think about ways to keep our resident carver in the loop, and get back to me, pls.

Meetin' Place

I never got the word out where the meeting was gwine be held at for to, so I hope it's not too late for y'all to plan. Pam A has agreed to be the hostest with the mostess yet again, so I'll see y'all there at 7ish Tuesday 3/23/2010. As recent emails have esplained, we be doin' artist tradin' cahds, so bring yo cards, and bring yo artists, and we'll try to get 'em togedda.

Ahtist Trading Cahds (ATCs)

In my copulous free time, I've gotten good and intimidated about making ATCs.
Some sites to look at when you think of your artistical trading cards for the next SANE meeting (23 March 2010):
http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/ - this is kinda a clearinghouse of info, links. One active, one inactive swap (send 20, get back 15 different)
http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/links.html - many links to many sites w/ ATC
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27062918329 - facebook site with lots of pictures (don't need to be a facebooker)
http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/08/17/artist-trading-cards/ - Charley Parker gives a short history and "rules" about ATCs. I steal from him:

The general rules for Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are:
The card must be the size of a standard trading card: 2.5 x 3.5 inches (64 x 89 millimeters)
A card can be ether an original work or a very small edition
The back of the card should have a signature, the date and the number (if the card is part of an edition) and ideally an address for the benefit of contacting the artist for additional trading.
Techniques and materials can be almost anything: paintings, drawings, collages, photographs, rubberstamp works, mixed media, found images, assemblages, beadwork, woven, string, doctored existing trading cards, etc. The only real rule here is that the card should fit into the standard plastic album sleeves for trading cards, which leaves out anything too dramatically thick or three-dimensional.
The cards are not to be sold, only traded or given away. (This is a noble attempt to keep the practice non-commercial, but as with comic book artist convention sketches, that trust is sometimes betrayed; artist trading cards can be found on eBay.)
The cards should ideally be original, but reproductions or "editions" are permissible. There is some controversy about this, mostly centering around the failure of someone to be up front about the nature of the work when swapping.
There is also controversy about suspending judgment when swapping to avoid assigning value to the cards (the "quality" and amount of effort put into the cards varies wildly). Stirnemann himself has struggled with the issues of copies vs. originals and the suspension of critical judgment.
Look through the links on Stirnemann's site and do a Google search for "Artist Trading Cards". There are numerous forums and community sites devoted to the subject. There is a large Flickr group devoted to the subject with over 400 members and more than 2,000 images.
Community, and sharing art with others, seems to play a large part in the appeal of the practice. At the very least, it's a fascinating concept.

I'm confident that I can make cards 2.5 x 3.5 inches, but that's about it, so there.