Possibility Radar/What is Useless Garbage? Revisited

In 1997, I was teaching Microsoft Word to students in the first generation of RIT's ACMT.  This was post-war Dubrovnik, there was a bit of random garbage on the streets and in unkept yards.  I gave the assignment for students to bring in some "useless garbage" and write a short story of what this item was before.  This was simply to have something worthy of typing up in our word processors.  But this was so much more and the little ideas with big impacts have me recalling this exercise over a decade later.

In Zagreb, nowadays and I suppose in many other parts of the world it is spring cleaning time.  Many residents are identifying items hidden in closets, basements, attics and garages that do not serve their original purpose and are going unfulfilled in their destinies.  Many of these items are finding there way into the trashbins or with the overflow, more accurately near them.  The scavengers of all types have their possiblity radar (coin I think I termed to describe what I intended on spreading when it was my time to speak at TEDxZagreb 2010).  I count myself as one of these hunters.  Currently I am on the look out for chairs. 

My friend Kim Woods has this infectious idea to "pimp" (in the MTV sense of the word) the chairs and give them a second life as functional art.  We hope to create some artistic creations with a few of our friends in the near future.  I ran across this fab site call Green Muze which has lots of brilliant ideas of revisiting found objects and giving them a new purpose.  One chair artistic created this breath taking octopus chair which makes you just appreciate the humble octopus and the humble chair that much more.

Feel free to post about new uses for the generally overlooked items in your trash;)