Back in 2001, the artists’ collective Temporary Services started a project with a prison inmate named Angelo in which they asked him to document how inmates adapt to their surroundings while confined. The project, entitled Prisoners’ Inventions, resulted in this fascinating 119-page book of detailed drawings that explain exactly how prisoners build contrivances from all sorts of found materials.The book documents everything from how to build an electric cigarette lighter out of paper clips, ice cream spoons and parts from a hot-pot, to an electric tattoo gun made from a bic pen, a walkman cassette player and a battery, to how to use your toilet to chill your soda.This book, above all things, proves that necessity is truly the mother of invention.
Maybe the best way to really get the most creative solution to technical problems would be to lock up engineers during the design phase of their projects.
The book can be ordered from the Giant Robot store for $12.00.
Prisoner Inventions: "Thinking Inside the Box"
Whoever said "only the stupid criminals get caught" never read Prisoners' Inventions, a book about the indomitable inventive spirit that was written and illustrated by an inmate named Angelo and put together by Temporary Services, a Chicago art company. Noah Shachtman writes in Wired Magazine that the book illustrates and explains the designs behind "80 improvised items" developed to make living in a jail cell a little more bearable. "Angelo's objects show a more banal, more human side of locked-down living," Shachtman observes.
Whoever said "only the stupid criminals get caught" never read Prisoners' Inventions, a book about the indomitable inventive spirit that was written and illustrated by an inmate named Angelo and put together by Temporary Services, a Chicago art company. Noah Shachtman writes in Wired Magazine that the book illustrates and explains the designs behind "80 improvised items" developed to make living in a jail cell a little more bearable. "Angelo's objects show a more banal, more human side of locked-down living," Shachtman observes.
Read more articles from the June 2004 issue of InventHelp's free newsletter for inventors
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Angelo contacted Mark Fisher in 1991 about a fan-zine Fisher published that was free to inmates. The two became pen pals and began talking about compiling Angelo's inventions into a pamphlet. But Angelo provided so many diagrams that the project evolved into a book and traveling exhibition, both produced by Fisher's company Temporary Services.
Indeed, Angelo and his cell mate, Jerry, have invented and diagrammed a host of items that we on the outside take for granted. Lighting a cigarette, for example, requires a little resourcefulness in Angelo and Jerry's jail cell because of California's strict anti-smoking laws. Angelo diagrams several inventive methods of building jerry-rigged lighters. One design calls for an old disposable razor, two paperclips, tape, and a bowl of salt water. Another requires tape, a battery and wire.
FD: Jerry-rigged... hmmm.
I am still reading The Man with the Heart of Iron... I wonder if Jerry was a German bomb maker.
But matches and lighters aren't the only "contraband" withheld from Angelo and Jerry in the big-house. Based on one of their designs, something as simple as a drinking cup they can keep in their 9'x6' cell would apparently need to be hidden. So Jerry and Angelo invented one made out of plastic wrap and paper mache and disguised it as a roll of toilet tissue they can leave in plain sight. Other inventions include immersion heaters, salt and pepper shakers, an indoor grill, a hot glue dispenser, picture frames, shelves and a chess board.
Temporary Services, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, held an exhibition of Angelo's drawings and text. The exhibit even included a replica of Angelo's jail cell so visitors could walk in and find out just how difficult thinking (and inventing) inside the box would be.
In addition to its run at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibit has appeared in Leipzig, Germany (July-October 2003); Munich, Germany (December 2003-March 2004); Hamilton, NY (March 2004); Sunderland, UK (April 2004); and Philadelphia , PA (April 2004).
To read and view more about the exhibit, visit Temporary Services.
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