Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Weaving Worlds: Speculations Between Affect and Evidence, Rotterdam, Hollanda, 28 - 30 Haziran 2023, ss.52-53
Ecological theorist Timothy Morton (2013) states hyperobjects are massively distributed in time, space, and dimensionality. By this definition, this paper suggests that assemblages of trash can also be treated as hyperobjects. The evidence contained in assemblages of trash is twofold as spatiotemporal. While the existence of assemblages of trash represents their spatial quality, the presence of traces of the past represents their temporal feature. Representation of these characteristics is revealed by the aestheticization of trash in different disciplines. This paper argues common aspects of the aestheticization of trash in geology, art, and architecture can be conceptualized as three folded agencies of material, value, and temporal dimensions. First, visual evidence is required for the material dimension to act as a moral agent. Second, visual evidence makes understanding economic, affective, and aesthetic values easier to comprehend. Lastly, the temporal dimension enables us to build up knowledge of the past and imagination of the future. This paper seeks agencies of works from different disciplines in terms of creating new imaginaries as visual evidence. For example, plastiglomerates, identified as future fossils, are displayed as geological artifacts in museums as a potential sign of the Anthropocene era. Likewise, the impact of trash is represented through artist Amy Balkin’s 2011 documentary A People’s Archive of Sinking and Melting which assembles trash as “community-gathered evidence”. Besides architectural proposals deal with the issue of trash by aiming to represent future imaginaries. The Plastic Pacific Hall drawing by NEMESTUDIO (2017) represents the effects of ongoing pollution as places are still being set up while the Trash Peaks installation by DESIGN EARTH (2017) reveals the web of waste management relationships (Ghosn and Jazairy, 2020). In short, this paper aims at uncovering the material, value, and temporal dimensions of trash through works that aestheticize it with geologic, artistic, and architectural tools.