What will the remains of our current civilization look like to future generations? The objects that we carelessly discard today will be tomorrow’s relics. Artist Victor Sonna takes those future relics and turns them into a sort of retro-futuristic (or perhaps futuristic-retro?) mix of aged components and future reuse.

(all images via: Designboom)

Sonna collects old, rusted industrial items that are no longer useful for their original intended purposes and turns them into fascinating bikes. The latest in his “Future Nostalgia” collection is a bike called Ipsum.

Ipsum is composed of an old rake, various bits of aged tools, and other industrial odds and ends. Each element shows its age with a unique patina of rust, flaked paint, and dents.

The artist describes his work as being inspired by the strength of destruction. He uses imperfect objects to create beautiful and unconventional works that question our very idea of what can be called beautiful.

Ipsum and the other bikes in the series are welded together to make them stable and feature functional wheels, pedals and chains so they should be rideable. Imagine how much waste could be kept out of landfills if every discarded object was suddenly seen for its inherent value rather than its past life as a no-longer-useful item.