Cynthetiq

Ingenuity Helps Prisoners Cope

location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60283,00.html

02:00 AM Sep. 04, 2003 PT

Locked in a California prison, Angelo needs a cup of coffee. Bad. But electric heaters used to make instant joe are contraband in jail. So his cellmate combines the metal tabs from a notebook binder with a couple of melted toothbrushes and some rubber bands.

Soon, Angelo is sipping Folgers.

The jury-rigged heater is one of nearly 80 improvised items Angelo meticulously diagrams in a new book, Prisoners' Inventions. Working with the Chicago-based art group Temporary Services, Angelo (not his real name) shows how inmates fashion dice from sugar water and toilet paper, dry bologna jerky on jail-house light fixtures, turn hot sauce bottles into shower heads and make grilled cheese sandwiches on prison desks.

"This gives a glimpse into the everyday lives of the outrageous number of people we have in our prison system," said Temporary Services' Mark Fischer, who first started trading letters with Angelo in 1991. "And it's a celebration of the creativity that comes in response to their restrictive environment."

In the movies, "prisoners only create things to escape, get high or kill each other," Fischer notes.

Angelo's objects show a more banal, more human side of locked-down life: one where soda cans filled with rocks become crude alarm clocks and inmates cool their drinks in toilet bowls.

Salt and pepper are only sporadically available in prison, Angelo explains. And when the seasonings are around, "everyone in the know" stuffs their pockets with the little paper packets that hold them. Instead of joining the rush, though, Angelo shows how he turns empty ChapStick containers and Bic lighters into cell-made salt- and peppershakers.

Jerry, Angelo's MacGyver-like pal, goes several steps further. He uses ice-cream sticks, strips of aluminum from soda cans, and glue scavenged from pastry boxes, to construct a deluxe, doubled-ended version (PDF) of the condiment dispenser.

California's strict antismoking laws have removed all matches and lighters from many prisons. So "inmates have revived old technologies ... to circumvent such deprivations," Angelo writes.

Ice-cream spoons, paper clips and a saltwater solution can be combined with an improvised electric heater or "stringer" -- for Rube Goldberg's answer to a Zippo. Or pencil leads and paper clips can be jammed into outlets to get an electrical spark. And these can be tied to twisted toilet paper, to light a makeshift wick.

But this is a risky method, Angelo warns. "No matter how careful you are, sooner or later it will trip the cell's circuit breaker," he writes. And that's a problem, considering how seriously inmates take their TV time. "Your Miranda rights mean nothing to some psycho on a life sentence who suddenly finds his baby sitter inoperative."

The improvised lighter is one of 30 objects that have been built from Angelo's descriptions by the Temporary Services art group and a team from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts.

The items are on display at the museum through next February, as part of an exhibition that explores "how people transform their worlds," said assistant curator Nato Thompson. (Many re-creations of Angelo's designs are also being shown at the Halle 14 Gallery in Leipzig, Germany.) Other highlights of the Massachusetts show, Fantastic, include Nils Norman's re-imagining of a local Kmart as an eco-tourist trap, and Miguel Calderon's Quantum Physics, in which six hippie mannequins stare at a fridge full of Cherry Garcia ice cream.

To Thompson, each of the prisoners' objects "tells a story, points to a situation. They give humanity to people in prison, showing how creative, how desperate they are."

If that's the case, then perhaps the most upsetting narrative is told by Angelo's cell, which the museum's crew re-created according to the inmate's most intricate instructions. Six feet wide by 9 feet long -- for two people -- the cramped quarters show just how spare, how limited life on lockdown can be.

"If some of what's presented here seems unimpressive," Angelo writes, "keep in mind that deprivation is a way of life in prison."

"The devices ... are considered contraband, subject to confiscation in routine cell searches. But inmates are resilient if nothing else -- what's taken today will be remade tomorrow," he added. "And the cycle goes on and on."
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I'm no MacGuyver but I've had to do things with minimal tools and stuff. I've made lights out of a 9volt battery and a single christmas light, used straight pieces of metal instead of a flat head screwdriver. These guys have to take the cake, especially since they don't have anything but time and ingenuity to solve some of their day to day issues.

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Conclamo Ludus

Interesting stuff. NASA should hire these guys to come up with emergency inventions while in space like in Apollo 13. You never know when you need a salt n peppa shaker when you lose orbit.

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tinfoil

Quite an interesting article. I am not terribly shocked at the methods taken by prisoners to bring some normallity to their life.

However, let's not forget the fact that prison isn't supposed to be easy and is supposed to inconvenient. Really inconvenient.

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pagliachi2003

That's a really cool article. I'm not conviced that cooling your drinks off in the toilet is such a good idea, but the other ideas are.

Thraeryn

I can definitely see offering jobs to folks who had come out of prison, telling them that they'd have to "invent" more medieval conveniences to bring things back to modern times. After all, when the bombs go off, these folks (sadly enough) are gonna be the only ones who know how to lead "normal" lives.

Silvy

Neat article!

Though I fail to comprehend the workings of the heater... Some energy has to come from somewhere.
Or are the toothbrushes still hot?

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YourNeverThere

Thats amazing, I really liked that article.

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jeenyus_one

good article and interesting read.

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filtherton

Ingenuity rocks. Stuff like this is inspiring couse it shows you how you can do something from nothing.

macmanmike6100

yeah, they are pretty clever. but let us not forget why they're in there.

Journeyman

It doesn't say why they're in there. I don't remember reading if they're in maximun or minimum security prison. And if they get away with publishing something like this, obviously the warden doesn't feel that they're much of a threat concocting these devices.

It is not entirely impossible that someone in prison deserves to be free, but the lack of mention as to why they're in there would seem to be most likely the result of an embarrasing (read: Rightful) reason for being locked up.

krazykemist

Here's your answer
http://a1112.g.akamai.net/7/1112/492...n-heater_f.jpg

Don't think I'll be trying that one unless i NEED to.

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Silvy

Thanks I understand now...

__________________
"Do not kill. Do not rape. Do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace. "
- Murphy MacManus (Boondock Saints)

Gortexfogg

Cool stuff. It' d be interesting to know what this prisoner did before he got locked up. I'd sure like to know how he knows so much about all this stuff (sugar water and toliet paper for dice!?).

druptight

that's amazing.