Hannah Williams
Thoughtful Rubbish
AAD Dissertation Studio 12 2019–20
Extracts from Hannah Williams, Thoughtful Rubbish. How the Representation of Waste is Changing: Is Waste Going to be the Defining Factor of Our Time?
Dissertation Studio 12 Decay, Repair and Back Again Tutor: Gabriele Oropallo
School of Art, Architecture and Design London Metropolitan University 2020
The Relationship between People and Objects The Becoming of a Waste Object The majority of this dissertation’s arguments start with thinking that nothing begins as waste. Over time objects can devolve into waste. The transformation of objects into waste is a process. Various things happen during the process; beginning the object’s new existence as waste. An example of this type of process could be a caterpillar’s creation, use and leaving of a chrysalis. The chrysalis acts as a catalyst in that process giving the caterpillar a space to become a butterfly. Waste could be seen the same way. Similar to the chrysalis for the caterpillar, it is us that is the catalyst for objects becoming waste. We create objects, use them and then we throw them away when we’re done. Raymond Williams’ writing, shows how people create opportunities for waste to exist through our need for functional objects: ‘the consumer wants only the intended product; all other products and by products he must get away from, if he can’ (Williams, c.1980: 81). This suggests that, in the making of objects that people want, other objects are being discarded as they are not suitable / necessary to create the desired object. Therefore, waste would not have been created if people had not said those objects were not necessary; providing evidence that people are a catalyst for the creation of waste. Believing that every person creates waste is not wrong. In fact it is true in one way or another. Although some definitely create more waste than others. This assumption stems from Brian Thill’s Socrates analogy, which describes the experience a person has when they encounter an object without a function or purpose for being. ‘The enigmatic object Socrates finds on the shore is inscrutable … bewildered by its mysterious origins, status, and purpose, bested by it, he hurls the unknowable thing back into the sea’ (Thill, 2015: 2). In the situation the analogy presents, the unrecognisable object is similar to the non-functional object Williams describes. Both objects are, due to their overall ambiguity, useless to people. Being seen as useless could make it easier to label objects as waste. Another reason for making an object into waste could be about how people feel toward objects. For example, the feeling that Socrates might have had when he was unable to discern the curious object, sounds like one coming from the direction of the abject. An abject being causes harsh responses like fear and aversion: ‘garbage, sewage, corpses and rotting food elicit powerful emotional responses’ (Arefin, 2015). In the case of waste, if it can be seen as an abject object, the emotion it could cause could be closer to humiliation rather than fear / horror. This feeling could happen simply by being in close proximity with the ‘failed’ object and knowing about being guilty by association. If you are near an object that you understand as flawed or purposeless, it could bring you down to its level therefore degrading you: ‘populations that deal with waste are tagged as dirty through their material association with trash’ (Arefin, 2015). In this situation, how people feel about themselves would cause the need to throw the object away to be overwhelming; the nonfunctional object would become another part of the waste that we are averse to in the first place. Michael Landy’s Art
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Bin (2010), could unintentionally be an example of this type of reaction to non-functional objects on a larger scale. Art Bin was a large installation at the South London Gallery. The work’s shape is reminiscent of a ginormous waste paper basket, using the majority of the gallery space; floor to ceiling almost. The structure is black and there are a set of stairs included in the work leading up to the rim of the bin; clear panels allow people to look into it. Landy asked people to submit their ‘failed’ artworks as candidates for rubbish so that he would be able to choose objects that would fill the bin. The work was described as ‘a container for the disposal of works of art. As people discard their art works the enormous bin becomes … “a monument to creative failure”’ (South London Gallery, 2010). The work’s description certainly reflects in the size as it is big enough to be seen as monumental. However, something more interesting than the size is that the bin was filled with objects that were considered to be failures. Not broken or on their way out; the non-functional objects. Here the term non-functional, is used to describe objects that do not fit into people’s ideas for them. Thus, they do not function as the individual would expect them to; the objects do not fit into the environment they are meant to. It is the lack of purpose, that stops the object being seen as worthwhile and unable to exist in the world as something other than waste: ‘dirt is not an essential characteristic of objects but is produced through its ambiguity and its subsequent inability to be assimilated into existing socio-cultural categories and system’ (Arefin, 2015). Landy’s work echoes this as after the exhibition closed, the bin’s contents were sent to landfill (Higgins, 2010). The objects there could not be considered as anything other than waste after it entered the bin, so it was treated as such.
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The Circumstances of Waste The Influences on Waste The act of removing an object from a person’s environment, as discussed before when looking at Landy’s Art Bin, could happen due to a swell of emotions or finding the object useless. However, removing an object from a person serves another purpose; the continual creation of identities through objects and their associated meanings with people. ‘Somehow at some point we begin to create our own biographies from the things we own or possess’ (Landy, 2008). Removing objects could make room for other objects, evolving a person’s identity by removing and replacing those objects. The need to do so to objects can sometimes be a personal thing as described before. Although in our time, it is plausible that outside influences cause us to think about our objects as something to be replaced; effecting the life spans of our objects drastically. In any study about the treatment of objects and their lifespans in our time, it is important to look at influences that will affect objects. Consumerism and throw-away culture are two of those influences. The binary of consumerism and throw-away culture has become one of the biggest influences on objects today: ‘to keep industrial machines humming, each citizen is “compelled to consume so much a year”. To that end, newness as a trait is cherished’ (Packard, 1963: 47). This shows that consumerism puts emphasis on replacing old objects with newer ones, causing the old objects to become waste. This has happened so much in recent years, that the multiple acts of discarding have become known as throw-away culture. Made and continued by ‘people who have the ability to throw away often and without concern’ (Hawkins, 2019). A possible cause of this could be the way consumerism causes people to doubt their objects by means of persuasion and fetishisation: ‘the consumer … fetishises the new and consequently pushes obsolescence to the margins of our attention’ (Tischleder & Wasserman, 2015: 2). Fetishisation is apparent whenever a newer model of something comes out; all attention is moved to that model making the other models seem behind the times (Tischleder & Wasserman, 2015: 2). On the other hand, persuasion is present in advertising and marketing, possibly making people think that their objects are out of date. The premise presented beforehand about persuasion and fetishisation in favour of new objects, is similar to the plot of the film Robots (2005). A young robot invents things to improve his world, but realises that new is not always better. He discovers that a leading manufacturing company plots to outmode old robots in favour of creating new upgrades. Although this is a fictional film about robots, the ideas surrounding objects in it can still apply to objects people use in real life. This is because it shows how people can be targeted by companies who say that old objects are not good; advertising newer versions of those objects as something to be revered could help to increase the effect of that message. The situation presented in Robots, also works as an analogy for the real-life experience objects could have in situations where they become outdated due to outside influences and become waste. This is because the robots give you an
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understanding of what an object might think about its own situation, due to the personification of the robots (objects) in the film: ‘What's the bad news? I checked the stock book. And as of today, they are no longer making parts for your model. You have been officially outmoded. Outmoded? Well, that's fine. What's the good news?! … All you need is an upgrade. That new-upgrade smell … We are not junk, we are not scrap, and we will not be treated this way’ (Robots, 2005). The script displays the desperation an object can face when it becomes outdated due to a newer model. The point is that consumerism and throw-away culture fail to see that by creating new models and making those seem like the better option, the new models just give people another reason to turn more objects into waste. The leaving behind and updating of objects has risen due to consumerism as mentioned before. However, consumerism has also led to a development within product design that does not benefit people buying the products. Products (objects) can now be designed to fail after a certain time. Unlike in Landy’s work where a person chose what objects were failures, the products come designed to fail: ‘the emerging design of materials as always-already destined for the trash heap’ (Liboiron, 2013). No need to act on or think about the object’s purpose / function. If we are ‘trying to situate ourselves as participants in … a … consumption cycle’, it has already placed us as people who design does not benefit (Thill, 2015: 70). People, unknowingly, are buying objects that are manufactured to have a predetermined lifespan: ‘obsolescence does not simply have a life all of its own – it is planned and calculated’ (Tischleder & Wasserman, 2015: 5). Designing objects in this way reveals a lot about the relationship people now have with objects. The relationship described here, allows us to see that planned obsolescence increases the potential waste output of people. If there is a chance that people create more waste due to planned obsolescence, why is it not heard about more? The answer is that ‘the obsolete is often thought of as the obscure and unseen afterlife of the commodity’, made to be forgotten and moved out of sight (Tischleder & Wasserman, 2015: 2). Some choose to follow that and do not think about where their objects go once they leave their sight. On the other hand, there are others who do not consider objects as an afterthought including Sarah Sze.
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‌ School of Art, Architecture and Design London Metropolitan University 2020
liveness.org.uk