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Designer Yogi Proctor coated a Canon copier in gold. It is, sadly, no longer functional. So it may not be a good buy if you’re in the market for a new copier.
When asked to explain why he made it, Proctor cryptically responded:
Well, I happened to re-hear the famous JFK speech on the radio that was actually written by Ted Sorensen, who himself modified it from a Khalil Gibran speech. It goes “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
I knew exactly what I could do. I could make a golden photocopier that doesn’t make any copies. Art is great like that. You make it to share with people.
Link -via Born Rich | Photo: Yogi Proctor
If so, a recent report at CBS News offers a cautionary reminder that improper disposal of copy machines may pose a security threat, because the copied images may be stored on the machine’s hard drive. For demonstration purposes, CBS purchased four used, discarded machines:
The results were stunning: from the sex crimes unit there were detailed domestic violence complaints and a list of wanted sex offenders. On a second machine from the Buffalo Police Narcotics Unit we found a list of targets in a major drug raid.
The third machine, from a New York construction company, spit out design plans for a building near Ground Zero in Manhattan; 95 pages of pay stubs with names, addresses and social security numbers; and $40,000 in copied checks.
But it wasn’t until hitting “print” on the fourth machine – from Affinity Health Plan, a New York insurance company, that we obtained the most disturbing documents: 300 pages of individual medical records.
Photocopy machine hard drives are supposed to be encrypted or wiped before resale, but obviously such is not being done. And, as CBS notes -
The day we visited the New Jersey warehouse, two shipping containers packed with used copiers were headed overseas – loaded with secrets on their way to unknown buyers in Argentina and Singapore.
In a related story, during the Cold War, the CIA collaborated with the Xerox Corporation to install a camera inside a machine used at the Soviet embassy. The project was so successful that dozens more such camera were installed in embassies around the world (embassies of friends and foes). That fascinating story is recounted at Edit International.
Fifty years ago this month, Xerox shipped out the first commercial document copying machine. This technical innovation began with Chester Carlson, a New York attorney, who discovered in the 1950s that photoconductivity could be used to create a mirror image of a document. From CNN’s historical overview:
Carlson spent more than a decade trying to design a working model of his copier — an obsessive and mostly fruitless quest that cost him his first marriage — until the Haloid company finally showed an interest.
By the mid-1950s, Haloid had devoted a team of engineers to the project. It was a huge gamble. The team toiled seven days a week in a Rochester warehouse, but progress was slow. One early version of the machine stood almost 12 feet tall. Another could only make copies in the dark. Engineers improvised by cobbling together crude prototypes out of spare parts, such as aluminum pipes and rabbit-fur brushes.
Link via Gizmodo | Photo: 1940s era industrial photocopier, courtesy of the US Social Security Administration
Problem: photocopiers are expensive, uncomfortable, and generally can’t support the weight of an adult human.
Solution: the iBum by Tomomi Sayuda:
This project came from “impact” brief. My initial concern was the news about a naked British streaker who jumped into the Japanese Emperor’s palace moat. I was interested in the principle of the news, which is showing embarrassment without big harm for fun. For me, impact means positive and humorous reaction. I decided how to represent this principle. This idea development took the longest time of my four projects. I was brainstorming in many ways with some practical developments since October 2008. Finally I came up with the idea of scanning people’s bum.
I think that we should all take a moment to thank the engineers of this world, without whom we would not be living in this modern, technological paradise.
Link via The Corner
