Author Archives: Mirya Nezvitskaya

Solar System as Waste

Benjamin Bratton’s “Terraforming” collection of essays comprises of theoretical ideas, that read like a manifesto and an experimentation of ideas about how the Earth could develop. In my humble opinion, the essays sound as radical utopias in a way, even though it does answer many questions. When thinking about climate crisis and environmental disasters, I couldn’t help but wonder, do we require a more practical approach? Do we even have enough resources to terraform our planet Earth? Is it a realistic approach? And how can we clean all of our planet?

As an experiment, I have created a small art project of our Solar system from the everyday waste around me.

 

Terrain textures of infrascapes: photo-essay.

In order to understand media-nature interactions, it is quite important to understand that “media analysis starts in landscapes, which themselves include both historical and ecological aspects”. [1] So why is it still, nowadays, that media and nature have a disconnected relationship? Our landscapes are forever changed with the magnificence of power plant chimneys, electrical lines, oil ports, to name a few. The structures and the influence of them are visible from a distance and are there for us to notice without even realising. However, what about the ground and terrain of Earth these majestic structures are built on? What about the close-up view of these terrains that infrastructure stands on?

This photo-essay is exploring the terrain textures of Kruunuvuorenranta, where one of the oil silos of Helsinki is located. The oil silo, nowadays, is mainly used as an event venue for exhibiting art installations and organising events; however, the nature and terrain around it is changed, forever, due to toxic spillage. How these textures differ from pure terrains in nature? Is there “purity” in nature even, nowadays? The discourse in nature purity.

(All photography is by the author, 25 October, 2020, Kruunuvuorenranta)

References:

[1] Bhowmik, Samir and Parikka, Jussi.. (2019).Infrascapes for Media Archaeographers. Schwabe Verlag Berlin GmbH. pp 183-193.

Technosymbiosis of media, performance and plastics.

 

Performance art scene can date back to the primitive people in Paleolithic era creating sacred rituals to emulate the spirit world. It is quite burdensome to produce the exact date of birth of the performance art, as in its essence it is a pure transmission of energy between the artist and the audience at certain given time and space; it happens in present – once the piece is over, it is over forever, only the memory of it can stay. This changes, however, with the birth of media technology, in particular the first film camera.

Kodak created first film camera in the late 80s [1], the first transparent and flexible film base material was nitrocelluloid [2], which was discovered and then refined for the use in film. Now, with this first film camera the performances were possible to capture, store and document them for later use. The performance trace was no longer only in viewer’s memory, but also on a piece of paper.

 

(Photo 1: Original Kodak Camera, Serial No. 540, [3])

 

Nitrate film was used for both photographic and cinematic images from late 19th century until late 40s in 20th century [2]. During this time in performance history, quite a popular style was cabaret. With the birth of revolutionary cultural movements like DADA and Cubism, performance art started to shape its importance in the bourgeoisie fine art society. Performance art was considered and still is, nowadays, as one of the purest artistic expressions. Quite challenging to capture the time and space of a certain moment on film, yet quite revolutionary, provocative and important for the history and theory of performance art the photographs were in the beginning of 20th century.

 

Cabaret Voltaire: A night out at history's wildest nightclub - BBC Culture

(Photo 2: Cabaret Voltaire, [4])

 

However, photographs do not depict the movements, the feelings and expressions of the performer. They are just a still candid photograph of a certain time and moment in that given space. During the same era a new art form in media was born – motion pictures and the first synthetic plastic was produced and patented by Leo Baekeland in 1907 [2]. Polymers like cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate and polyester play an important role in film history as well as in the making and documenting of the performance history. Many film rolls were used and discarded in the landfill, where most traditional plastics might not decompose.

With the creation of digital cameras in 70s and 80s the feeling of many wasteful materials discarded, like film rolls, seems to have disappeared. But is it really quite so? Inside the digital camera, there are many electronic equipments, sensors, detectors that capture the incoming rays and turn them into digital signals. Digital cameras use digital technology. “Plastics are often neglected within materialist accounts of media” as rightfully Sy Taffel said in their paper “Technofossils of the Anthropocene: Media, Geology, and Plastics. Cultural Politics” [2]. If we go beyond digital camera as a medium to document performance art, we can think of  the quite recent concept of the art of the future, for example mixed reality. Mixed reality can truly help the artist to caption their performance forever. The feeling and experience for the viewer is quite different and incomparable to viewing the performance piece, for example, in the form of photograph or a movie. In mixed reality the viewer can be present with the performer in space. It is no longer the documented trace of performance you are viewing, it is almost like a feeling that you are there together with an artist.

Performance art is art quite often without objects that happen in given space and moment. In order to be present, the viewer needs to be physical in that space. But with the help of the media the viewer can experience partially or fully the artwork. Their symbiosis is strong and it plays an enormous role in the history, theory and development of performance as an art form. The symbiosis of media and plastics might not be as visible to the naked eye, however, it is daily there in our everyday lives capturing incoming rays, detecting the change in the environment and responding with the output. We cannot talk about one without the other, thus performance, media and plastics are tied together in the technosymbiosis of anthropocene.

As a final thought, here is a small performance and entertainment to compare thermoplastics and thermoset plastics.

 

(Video 1: Comparison of plastics in digital media 1, thermoplastics examples, by the author)

 

(Video 2: Comparison of plastics in digital media 2, thermoset plastics examples, by the author)

 

References:

[1] Ma, Jonathan. (2017). Film Photography History and Emergence of Digital Cameras. https://sleeklens.com/the-history-of-film-and-emergence-of-digital-cameras/ [Accessed 4 October 2020]

[2] Taffel, Sy. (2016). Technofossils of the Anthropocene: Media, Geology, and Plastics. Cultural Politics. 12. 355-375. 10.1215/17432197-3648906

[3] National Museum of American History. Original Kodak Camera, Serial No. 540. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_760118 [Accessed 5 October 2020]

[4] Sooke, Alastair. (2016). Cabaret Voltaire: A Night out at History’s Wildest Nightclub. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160719-cabaret-voltaire-a-night-out-at-historys-wildest-nightclub [Accessed 5 October 2020]

 

 

The politics of mass production and fabrication

While reading Sean Cubitt’s “Ecologies of Fabrication” text [1], I couldn’t help but think about the mass production, mass selling and market domination in postcolonial capitalistic society. In the era since the ending of World War II new economy was established, where there is a large need for the creation, production and manufactures of the common goods. Being a designer myself, the text made me think about how large corporations influence and establish social, cultural and economic authority in globalism and mass market. Particular resonance with  a sociologist C.Wright Mills’s book “The Politics of Truth” [2] comes to my mind here; in his paper “The Man in the Middle”, Mills stated that “Continuous and expanding production requires continuous and expanding consumption, so consumption must be speeded up by all the techniques and frauds of marketing” (“Politics of Truth”, p. 177). In the paper Mills was talking about certain techniques designers in the mass market quite often rely onto and how “the waste of human labor and material become irrationally central to the performance of the capitalist mechanism” (“Politics of Truth”, p. 178).

Society is in itself a sales room. The common big lie in capitalist society is the classical phrase “We only give them what they want”. However, when we truly think about it, the skills of advertising, packaging products in a certain way and fake need for the products are the dogma of the mass production culture. Do we really need everything that we have and posses? When and why lifeless objects became so important in our everyday life? As a designer myself I couldn’t stop but question these important notions, as we, designers, can play and influence the market greatly. Even the model of the capitalist market structure is create yearly styles, make people become ashamed of not owning newest styles and trends and boost their self-esteem with the purchase of this year’s.

If the economy’s task is to sell, where do we stand in it and how can we help as designers, researchers, artists, writers, sociologists within the media field and beyond and how can we influence and establish new ways of producing and create new fundamental values in mass market and mass production. Perhaps, our society needs to be built and constructed around artisanal work and higher quality of products vs.capitalistic cultural apparatus of mass culture, mass society and mass production.

[1] Sean Cubitt, “Ecologies of Fabrication,” in Sustainable Media: Critical Approaches to Media and Environment, eds. Nicole Starosielski and Janet Walker, NY and London, Routledge, 2016

[2] C.Wright Mills , “The Man in the Middle”,  in The Politics of Truth, eds. John Summers, 2008: p. 173-183

Demand of raw materials in advanced technologies

In her paper “Thermocultures” Nicole Starosielski [1] talks about raw materials needed for media technologies. In order to grasp and understand the paper deeper, I tried to give my own version of the meaning what the compound term “thermocultures” could be. Prefix “thermo” corresponds to something relating to heat, whether “cultures”, in this instance, could correspond the the social behaviour and customs of society.

“Thermocultures” paper gave quite a big overview of how we are treating and transforming the earth’s raw materials currently. “For each ton of ore removed, only ten pounds of pure copper will be produced”. So when the valuable materials are produced, what becomes with the rest of excavated materials. Do they become waste? And where does this culture of pure materials originally come from?

In Cecilia Jamasmie paper “Copper supply crunch earlier than predicted – experts” [2] mentions that “increased consumption from new technologies, including electric vehicles, will drive demand for the metal and its by-products” and that sooner or later the deficit of copper will become visible and evident, as the demand is becoming higher. Copper is one of the main metal of transition and it is an essential component in electronic product manufacture, it is also one of the best electrical conductors. In Cecilia Jamasmie paper [2] a very fascinating chart was presented about the supply gap of copper:

Copper supply crunch earlier than predicted — experts

Without a doubt, raw materials play an important role to the success of the economy of the country and society, however, raw materials could soon be in short supply, as a direct result of them being in high demand. Perhaps, the purification process needs to be re-thought and certain predictions are required to be understood, which raw materials are needed for resource-sensitive future technologies.

[1] Starosielski, N., 2016. Thermocultures of Geological Media. Cultural Politics, 12(3), pp.293-309.

[2] Jamasmie, Cecilia, 2018. Copper supply crunch earlier than predicted – experts. https://www.mining.com/copper-supply-crunch-earlier-predicted-experts/ (Accessed: 20 September 2020)