stuff to do when you're bored....

A server side panel with various computer CPUs and DLP chips as magnets

I am a magpie, I like shiny things. Computer bits are shiny so I tend to collect them, especially CPU chips and other bits and bobs, with  DLP  chips being among my very favourite. Over the years I have collected a rather large amount of these bits and pieces because I use them in my Re-Cycled art projects. Sometimes as collage material on canvas but sometimes for other things as well.

I wanted a magnet board in the kitchen because in Germany there is this weird tradition of hiding the fridge behind a cupboard door so the whole concept of fridge magnets is gone. I had been looking for "just the right one" for a while but they were either too expensive, too small, too large or the wrong colour. So I ended up salvaging scrap from work and using that instead.

In the picture you see the side panel from a server housing. It measures 62x42 cm. It's big, it's metal and it's a neutral colour. So I strung a wire on it and we hung it up in the kitchen. Then, being kind of restless and needing something to do with my hands I rummaged through my rather impressive collection of CPU chips and the box of DLP chips, found my collection of saved neodym magnets ( most of which have come out of notebook housings) and the super glue and set about making my own fridge magnets.

2 DLP chips and an Intel pentium pro

On the board is computer history with CPU chips ranging from 386 right up to an Intel (c) XEON. The really big gold one is a server CPU chip, an Intel Pentium Pro and it's huge. The little ones that look as though they have a mirror in the middle are the DLP chips. And even though it looks like 1 single mirror it's actually millions.

DLP chip and Xeon cpu

 Then there are things like this...

little IKEA metal drawer thing with harddrive centers for handles.

I use all sorts of computer bits for all sorts of things. Ages ago at IKEA in their sale section we found this nifty little metal drawer thing but without handles for next to nothing. When we got it home I discovered that I could screw the wheel hub things from the inside of hard drives onto it and use them as handles. I know they are not in the center but really I could care less. I like the weirdness of the handles.

"Screen saver" Notebook cover frame, canvas and acrylic paint.

Sometimes I just do whimsical weird stuff, like the above painting framed by a notebook inside cover frame. It's actually attached currently to my upstairs magnet board because instead of a wire to hang it on a wall it has a rather heavy duty neodym magnet that came out of a hard drive so that I could hang it to the metal wall I used to sit beside at work.

While most of the computer garbage gets recycled some ends up in the hands of people like  me and we have our own way of recycling.


Until then, be excellent to each other!