The rackhacker's manifest

Canniers are a statement and being a rackhacker is making that statement. 

It says that the person has grown to define their own values and is ready to disrupt the unidirectionality of consumption. 

The primal connection of a human and the material world around them is the abstracting process that connects the objects around them with their objectives. That is how it all began, when we started picking up stones. We give new sense to objects, we redefine them according to our personal realities.  There is a certain beauty in this, the creation of value. 

Despite how innate this process is, in the last decades we have increasingly opted for a shortcut. We gave away the power of value creation to professionals. Why? Because it is easy and it is fast. They will tell us how to cover any necessity or solve any problem with their specialized product, set its value and put a price on it. The downside is that with the same move we become departed from our personal reality and migrated onto the values set by marketing teams. We lose autonomy over defining what is valuable and what is not, because we get emotionally hooked on easy solutions. In the meantime, we get too much exposure to those imposed values and they end up defining not only the solutions to our problems, but our desires and problems themselves.

We think that the most sensible counter-act to this dynamic is upcycling. Take an object whose once marketed purpose had come to an end, an object that doesn't mean anything to anyone, and transform it just by changing the way you think about it. That is the most electrifying thought. Giving objects a new life. This kind of magic happens locally, not through globalized industrial processing: Local upcycling is one of the most environmentally conscious actions that can be taken. Embrace curiosity, connect with the material reality around you. Avoid rigid forms of self-definition - be liquid and you'll leave no grasp for marketing pressure. It is a playful approach to life.  

Canniers and upcycling action in general is a statement that the person has grown to define the value of things around them on their own, they are ready for action, and they are down to using tools, and that is just sexy. We love to make that statement, it gives us freedom. 

“ But wait, aren't you going to tell me what value I should be giving plastic cans from now on? Isn't this just another marketing trick?  ”

Excellent critical thinking there, we loved that one. Answering this question will be up to you, but here is a hint: When a design reflects uncompromised functionality and pocket- and environmental friendliness, stripped of mystifying elements, you are probably looking at an honest design. We define intrinsic elegance as the ability of transmitting a sense of value with simplicity, and Canniers do just that.