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Sociology of Waste
Putting waste to use: sociological explanations behind specific beliefs in waste management
Looking at the trash located in a dormitory, one of the items that caught my interest was a sheaf of papers containing readings, exams, and notes from a (notably) university student. Since some of the readings were somehow familiar or of interest to me, I salvaged these papers from the trash, and tried to know what is the information contained within these papers. Notable among these papers is that most of them were only written or have prints or texts on one side of the paper, while the back part was left blank. The readings were also unmarked, which seemed to be not used nor read by the owner at all. Papers containing notes, meanwhile, were mostly photocopied, which gave the impression that they were not the owner's (notes), but notes that were simply photocopied from a classmate....
I considered this sheaf of papers as unused papers in the sense that it was not read nor even looked at by its owner.
These observations are given more meaning when applied in the context of sociology of waste. In the book "Waste and want: a social history of trash," author Susan Strasser explicated her interpretation of the changes in society's consumption and economy through an analysis of people's trash (i.e., garbage). One of the most popular views expressed in the book was her observation that "Kleenex, Kotex and Shredded Wheat boxes -- the literal throwaways -- represent the most extreme form of a relationship to objects that was new at the beginning of the 20th century. More and more things were made and sold with an understanding that they would soon be worthless or obsolete."
This passage speaks strongly for the "plight" of the sheaf of papers I found in the dorm's…
The life of the world is an endless cyclical act of discarding and renewal. The philosophical nature of art can show us that to refuse to recycle and to cling to the false idea that the shiny new tin wheels on our roller blades, that originates in the scrap metal of our recent ancestors, is new is a powerful one. Scanlan's poetic musings in On Garbage also stress the humbling
Much as Porter discovered playthings as a little boy in bottle caps, rather than collecting more and more matchbox cars, for example, remnants of consumerism only to be disposed of in weeks rather than things to be kept as relics of a bygone era, one must begin to see from an early age the slim line of difference between, say a Happy Meal Toy or a bottle cap from
The fact that his labors are more often than not, fortified by beer, to steel him to the unpleasant task of destruction, underline Hanta's futile attempts to disengage himself from the physical, material act of cultural destruction through drug-inducted dissociation. (2) Hanta records, particularly during the first part of the book, in excruciating detail the masses and masses of words he has rendered for the scrap heap, and his
Artistic 'Techniques' Art becomes reality. This is my desire, this is my purpose. So this is my creation, my child. The visions of primitive cave paintings dance in my vision as I put the last touches on the backdrop of this set. This abandoned Victorian house which is now home to leaves and spiders and forest creatures and my child, my masterpiece... we have carried generators and lights and cameras the
Koolhas's junkspace certainly paints a perfect picture of certain parts of Chicago where undifferentiated ethnic sprawl leads slovenly onto another and then onto another, often without demarcations being drawn and suddenly one finds one walking or biking onto the promenade running alongside the lake or staring up at the skyscrapers that have been squeezed and twisted into tight corners and loom down onto the twisting, careening streets beneath. Chicago is tight
While that process may be somewhat apparent in Kurt Schwitters's Merz pictures from this era, the artist was not so radical as to defy all means of self-expression - he clearly could not help himself from interfering by shaping his materials into a form that may not have seemed coherent at the time, but from a historical perspective, certainly seems to make sense. Both works seem to evoke a