So here’s the Friday quiz: What’s the connection between Harrison Ford and Found & Chosen?

The admittedly tenuous answer, I can tell you, is a load of rubbish – or to be precise – “kipple”.

Kipple is word conjured up by science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, in his 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, to describe everyday rubbish, domestic clutter, chaotic detritus and litter that can build up around us almost, it seems, of its own accord. [The novel inspired Ridley Scott’s movie, Bladerunner, starring Harrison Ford, of course]

For all your vintage home decor needs…

On a relatively minor scale Jane likes to create order and patterns out of random found objects, old toys, plastic bits and bobs, “mini-kipple”, you could say – as in this photograph (published by Uppercase magazine).

Abandoned, preserved, then transformed…

Which is why we have been fascinated to read about Dan Tobin Smith. He’s a London artist who recently turned kipple into a large-scale, stunning installation in his studio. It looked like this:

Modern Art Is Rubbish….

Dan spent three months collecting all kinds of unwanted, abandoned crap – appealing to the public for donations – and then meticulously arranged a huge assortment of junk into chromatically-themed sections for his show, The First Law Of Kipple, part of September’s London Design Festival.

“No-one can win against kipple” – Philip K. Dick

Close-up Kipple

Creating art from “rubbish” is not so novel – remember, for instance,  the buzz created by Japanese artist Tomoko Takahashi at his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in 2005 –

Part of Takahashi’s “castle” of crap at the Serpentine

– but now when Jane suddenly dives down to the pavement to retrieve a bit of overlooked plastic “rubbish”, she can reassure any concerned onlooker – “It’s OK, I’m only kippling…”

David