Work Of Art FRINQ - Winter 2015

Monday, 18 May 2015

Garbage Sculpture Plan - "A Time of When I Was Very Small"

Just yesterday, I went to SCRAP and initially had ideas to work with fabrics or other tattered, thrashed materials. When I walked in, my idea was initially fulfilled, finding some yarn and other scraps of fabric. It wasn’t until I walked over to the wood-scrap section where I found this piece:

This plaque made me stop and put me in a completely different place. I put everything else I had collected away and changed my idea right then and there. My idea for my sculpture now is to collect what people had as memories (which may be forgotten now) and document the “life” of the name of the person on the back of the plaque through their “trash” and personal items. I found objects such as the wood shelving, black dowels, and page protectors, which will work out perfectly to create a protruding “book of memories”. I will be taking what I initially found and attaching more to it through the use of narrative. I will place the items into the page protectors to “preserve” those memories and the meanings they hold. Something interesting that I noticed once I got home was that many of the objects I attained seemed to be from the same person (by their handwriting and similarities in the objects). The pieces in my collection have put me in a different space ever since I gravitated towards them. Part of me wonders what would be lost if these items just ended up in the dump and I think that is what my project boils down to; more than just the waste of these items added to the garbage, what happened to the meanings they once held for people.

I think I gravitated toward these objects because I am interested in the memories of others and strange mementos that people hold onto, and then get rid of them like they are nothing. The things that haunt/sadden me the most are the boxes of photos, many with family memories, for pennies. Most people, including the original owners of the objects, would see those items as worthless trash, but my mind explores into the deeper meanings of them and I get very interested in them. The history and stories they tell could be endless, some happy, and others sad.

I plan to go back on Tuesday to find more objects, as well as collect things I may find along the way. I feel that what I have so far is definitely a good start and might not need more to express itself, but we will see.

12 and 1:00 Mentor Session Responses

12 and 1:00 Mentor Session Responses:

The fact of the matter is, we are all consumers whether we like it or not. If someone were to tell me that they are not a consumer and do not create any waste, I would find their lifestyle almost impossible. With that in mind, there are some things we can live without. Although we are a consumerist and capitalistic society, we have the ability to limit ourselves in consumption as well as the use of plastics. As one of the readings stated, “Of all the “–isms” of the twentieth century none has been more misunderstood, more criticized, and more important than materialism” (Twitchell 1). That is an important point to bring up because I think people wrongly associate the idea of consumerism with materialism, and vice-versa; that is where the misinterpretation exists. We need to consume the essentials to stay alive, but we do not need a new iPhone every single year. That, to me, is one of the many differences between consumerism and materialism. But, that materialism is fed by our capitalistic society and giving more people the ability to obtain. Take this for example: AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint – the top wireless telecommunication entities – have introduced programs such as “Jump” (T-Mobile), “Next” (AT&T), and “Edge” (Verizon) which allow users to upgrade their phone more often, with the ability to pay monthly and have no down-payments. This, coupled with the traditional 1-2 year contract systems for those carriers, makes users want to upgrade their devices each time it is available to them. This is unnecessary, wastes precious metals and plastics, and ultimately adds to our landfills and recycling plants as e-waste. It’s not just the telecommunication world that does this, it is the brands such as Apple, Samsung, Sony, really any electronics brand you can think of, that release new products each year making the “old technology” look inferior and obsolete. People fall into the trap of that advertising scheme as well as the social constructs that have formed around our ability to obtain. “You’re still rockin’ the iPhone 3Gs? Dude, its 2015, get with it. The 6 is where it’s at.” The normality of this is all too often. From the production companies (Apple), to the network providers (AT&T), there needs to be some changes in how their devices are marketed, all the way to the processes of recycling their products; we can only hope that will be the norm for all companies in our lifetime.

It isn’t just the big tech companies that add to the issue of overconsumption, materialism, and the use of plastics. Companies that provide products at consistently low prices, H&M for example, make you think you are getting a great deal on a $5 T-shirt, but don’t realize that shirt will probably not last as long as a shirt from Ralph Lauren or IZOD. We all take part in this idea, so to speak; I mean Macklemore even said in his hit song, “Thrift Shop”, “Ay, yo, that’s $50 for a T-shirt”. We’re going to go for the thing that is the better deal more often than not because we live on the instant gratification of a good deal and new products. The problem boils down to this: “We are the main cause of the problem (materialism, overconsumption), but also the key to the solution” (Wallace 7).

Questions:

1) Is there anything positive to the idea of overconsumption, or the word consumption as a whole? What is the stigma that comes with it?

2) Could a change in the technology advancements of consumer products ever happen at this point? Might iPhones ever be released every two years, or have we become too focused on the cycle of technology?

3) What is the limit to the “reduce, reuse, recycle” slogan?