Proposal by: Arthur Guilleminot

Piss Soap

Project proposal: Ecodeviant Research

My project of Piss Soap is an ecodeviant product aiming to regenerate our local urban environments, while questioning our social conditioning about disgust.

Piss soap is made entirely out of human activity waste materials, including urine. All the raw materials needed to make piss soap can be collected on a local scale of a city and then redistributed for cleaning roads, streets or other public spaces. Piss soap is a challenging social product. By presenting itself as a product made out of gruesome elements, it carries a strong social stigma. Piss soap is a solution for city wastes but more importantly, challenges the inhabitants to decondition their vision upon the “dirty” matter. Piss Soap is not only sustainable, or circular, it is a regenerative ecodeviant element for our cities.

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Piss Soap, Butt Plug Edition - The project of Piss Soap is an ecodeviant product aiming to regenerate our local urban environments, while questioning our social conditioning about disgust. Photo by Filippo Iannone Filippo Iannone, Arthur Guilleminot

Project description

Piss Soap was presented at Mediamatic in 2019 in the shape of a butt plug. It was awarded the Distributed Design Award in 2021 in the category Future Thinking. I am currently eager to implement Piss soap on a local scale to study it’s impact on our socioecological context and its possible developments. I envision to dive deeper in the material research surrounding the Piss soap and research how to change the smell of the frying oil, the influence of the ageing of urine upon the process and its practical use in our urban landscape. All these questions will help me understand further the methods to implement Piss soap in Amsterdam and to foresee more accurately its possible impacts. To do so, I am actively looking for institutions and venues that would be interested in collaborating with me and help sourcing the main waste materials. Ideally this collaboration will lead to a Mediamatic X Piss-Soap edition made entirely from the waste of the venue.

Possible ways to expand the project

Piss soap is not only a product but also a process. It is open for everyone to reproduce at home. To facilitate its implementation, a point of collection and transformation could locally be installed. The cold Piss soap making process could be taught to the local population in order for everyone to produce their own, at home, with their own wastes. Furthermore, the local inhabitants that would collect waste materials would be able to receive Piss soap for their personal uses. In the future, I could imagine opening the first “Piss Soap Factory”. A space that recycles wastes of the neighbourhood and redistributes the outcome to the benefits of its inhabitants; regenerating its environment while embracing more ecodeviant futurities.

Personal introduction

Arthur Guilleminot (1992) is an artist with an ‘ecodeviant’ practice, living in Amsterdam. He was born in France in a family who disregards imposed norms of being and listens emphatically to the desire of other ways of living. This context stimulated him to always be critical towards the sociological ‘common sense’, proposing new personal and queered approaches. In his practice, he intersects disciplines such as design, performance, fashion, and fine arts.

Estimated costs

As Piss Soap’s needed materials are only waste, the production costs of the project would be dedicated to the purchased of equipment. Hand-blenders, jars, measuring cups will be necessary to produce soap in bigger quantity. The experimentations will also require a part of the budget to lead to conclusive results. Overall, the project would require around 400€ of material and an artistic fee of 200€ per month, for the research and production of Piss Soap over a period of 4 to 6 months.

This proposal is part of the 'Penny for your Thoughts' project 2022.

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Process of making soap out of waste - Piss soap is made entirely out of human activity waste materials, including urine. All the raw materials needed to make piss soap can be collected on a local scale of a city and then redistributed for cleaning roads, streets or other public spaces. Piss soap is a challenging social product. By presenting itself as a product made out of gruesome elements, it carries a strong social stigma. Piss soap is a solution for city wastes but more importantly, challenges the inhabitants to decondition… Arthur Guilleminot

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Piss Soap During the Empathic Boot Camp to Disgust at the Utopia Opening - Piss soap   is made entirely out of human activity waste materials, including urine. All the raw materials needed to make piss soap can be collected on a local scale of a city and then redistributed for cleaning roads, streets or other public spaces. Piss soap is a challenging social product. By presenting itself as a product made out of gruesome elements, it carries a strong social stigma. Piss soap is a solution for city wastes but more importantly, challenges the inhabitants to decondition… Arthur Guilleminot

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Piss Soap at Empathic Boot Camp to Disgust - Arthur Guilleminot presenting his Piss Soap at the Utopia Opening. Piss soap   is made entirely out of human activity waste materials, including urine. All the raw materials needed to make piss soap can be collected on a local scale of a city and then redistributed for cleaning roads, streets or other public spaces. Piss soap is a challenging social product. By presenting itself as a product made out of gruesome elements, it carries a strong social stigma. Piss soap is a solution for city wastes but more importantly, challenges the inhabitants to decondition… Arthur Guilleminot