LIVING SYSTEMS - JERSZY SEYMOUR

The "Living Systems" installation is the result of a series of experiments with organic plastics developed by Seymour and is now for display at the vitra design museum. Seymour began the experiments some time ago in his home town of Berlin, and the latest products of his researches are now on display.

The plastic is produced by extracting the starch from potato, mixing it with milk and heating it to make it liquid. The material, which is biodegradable, hardens on a bed of sand and forms the material base for a range of furnishings. When dyed with food colouring the material can be turned into children's chairs or daybeds, which look as if they have been cast in brightly coloured icing.

However, what at first looks like a playful experiment is based on a very serious idea. How is it possible today for people to live an autonomous life and take care of their own needs? Seymour, who grew up in Canada, looks for answers at a design level.
After many years of experience as a designer of objects in plastic, which were partly produced with complex moulds, Seymour, who clearly attaches a great deal of importance to freedom, asked himself the question of how designers can free themselves from the restrictions imposed by production. With his do-it-yourself experiments he has released himself from production processes which are becoming ever more complex and opaque, reflecting afterwards on the design autonomy which this provides.

Food for Design as we may speak. We did some more research and bumped into the following recipe/process.

Recipe :
-1900 g Potato or potato skins
-6000 g water
-580 g milk
-1400 g (potato) starch
-140 g whey protein

The potato skins are dry chopped to 1 mm pieces in an industrial blender. The heated water/milk blend (heated to 65 DEG C) is then added to the potato skins and blended in the industrial blender. The potato starch is mixed in to the water/milk/skins solution. Finally, the whey protein concentrate is added to the mix and thoroughly blended in the blender.

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via dezeen