When most people think about packaging tape, duct tape and other types of tapes, the first thing that typically comes to mind is a convenient and efficient way to cardboard boxes. But innovative artists and other creative people are doing extraordinarily uncommon things with this common item.
For example, a team of Viennese and Croatian designers recently used ordinary packaging tape to create an incredible art installation in Berlin museum. Using the tape to create giant spidery webs, the members of the For Use/Numen design team build self-supporting cocoons that visitors can actually climb inside and explore. Three times per year for the past eight years, the artists have built the enormous webs at the museum. Similar installations have also been built in an art gallery in Croatia and an abandoned attic in Vienna.
Scotch Tape Sculptures
Another group of artists, this time in the United States, have created sticky sculptures of dragons, horses and other creative designs using nothing but Scotch tape as part of the Off the Roll Tape Sculpture Contest. The winner will receive a $5,000 prize.
If art galleries aren’t your style, then how about prom dresses made of nothing except duct tape? Each year, the manufacture Duck Tape brand invites creative high school students to design colorful, stylish prom dresses and tuxedos from the convenient adhesive tape. The student who comes up with the most creative design wins a $5,000 college scholarship plus another $5,000 for their school. The idea may be catching on. Duct tape designer gowns were recently featured on the television program “Project Runway”.
Unusual Medical Uses
Football fans and followers of the Beijing Olympics may have noticed that some of their favorite athletes are now sporting special kinesiology tape to support muscle recovery and help prevent sprains and other injuries. The specialized tape, developed by a New York chiropractor, can be precut into different shapes to treat each athlete’s individual needs.
Another medical development involving packaging tape has to do with x-rays. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have discovered that if transparent tape — the same kind used to wrap Christmas and birthday presents — is rolled off its spool in a vacuum chamber, it actually emits x-rays. The scientists were able to use the x-rays make images of the bones inside their hands. In the future, the technology may be used by paramedics to take portable, inexpensive x-rays of injured people at the scene before they are transported to the hospital.
Inspired? Find your own creative uses for packaging, duct and transparent tape with the many varieties available at Bahrns. Click here to see our full inventory of tapes and dispensers.