Stickers have one main mechanical function, to stick. As a gesture of respect towards their function, if a sticker has not been stuck, I will stick it to anything, it doesn’t matter where, how or why, but that it will be sticking. Their primary function as a highly engineered material has been utilized and set to rest. Using them up, even if done poorly, feels better than letting them go to waste, unstuck. Consumption as a positive gesture against disposal and obsolescence.
In the 21st century, technology is evermore airtight, closed to the gazing eye, rejecting repair and facilitating disposal. [1] We are part of the Capitalist mode of production, surrounded by highly scripted objects, prey to planned obsolescence and its evil counterpart, perceived obsolescence. In 1961 the Republic of Cuba faced scarcity of resources due to the country’s economical and political crisis. Cuban workers strategised a self production, repair, reuse. They repurposed methodologies as the Communist wealth diminished, implying the end of the Soviet Union’s aid to the small island, [1] a reminder of the Marxist atrocities. A re-appropriation of technology took place and trickled down from an industrial necessity, to domestic commonplace, converting Cuba into a sort of DIY society.
The lack of goods rather than money reshaped the cultural attitude towards objects. Things were no longer seen purely for what they were designed to be. Objects were questioned, products examined and tinkered with, no longer seen for their original logic but for their material properties. Designer Ernesto Oroza describes this behaviour as a ‘Technological Disobedience’, “The Cuban’s systematic disrespect towards complexity, closeness and exclusionary characteristics of industrial objects’ and their logics”. [1] At that time, Cubans had no choice but to create and repair, over and over again. An expression of everyday design emerged as the consumer became a creative appropriator, fabricating goods not officially available on the island. They learned to ‘disrespect’ the predetermined industrial authority of objects through invention, thus extending the life of products.
Work Time 1/2. Found clock on discarded dust pan, 2021.
I argue that the Cuban practices of Non-Expert Design were shaped by social, economic and material constraints encouraging DIY behaviour. On the other hand at OpenCo we have accessed the opposite problem through Mining. The abundance of material due to the socio economic condition that we are part of reflects our practices of Non-Expert reinvention . Disrespecting or manipulating artifacts not designed to be adjusted, for the Cubans was the solution to the problem of accessibility of resources but for the majority of the Capitalist territories it is one that talks to our growing waste problem. Consumption needs to become transformation, redesign and repurpose. ‘Using up’ until the primary function is no longer viable, encouraging longevity and preservation in the context of discard. For OpenCo Consumption is the utilisation of any object in whatever form it may be, disregarding the idea of obsolescence. Material takes on a new form as the creative practice is to resolve its new function.
GENERAL WASTE, 4.5M3 Frontload Bin. Broken shopping trolley's, re-shaped and welded. 2021.
Consuming is about much more than disposability, it’s about enjoying and engaging fully with goods and materials. This process is possible through the collection, dismantlement and forceful reinjection of waste into our lives. The idea of Détournement described by theorist Mckenzie Wark is the destruction for creation “whilst still remaining true to the identity of the element”, applied to discarded material. [2]
The key to De´tournement is not to appropriate the image, but to appropriate the power of appropriation itself. -Mckenzie Wark
Appropriating discarded material is not piracy, it is a method of playful cultural Consumption, it neglects the idea of ownership in favour of its means of reparation . Using up our own detritus in itself draws significance from the appropriated material and speaks of it’s dirty context [2]. We need to reframe what Consuming means, re-appropriating the power of depletion. A rerouting of object Consumption is needed, finishing material rather than the premature abandonment of it. This is not about legality and personal property but an illustration of a means of ‘spectacular production’. [2]
Consumption through the appropriation of waste is the password to understanding and embracing Capitalism. I’m a proud Consumer, in fact I believe we don’t consume enough. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a waste problem if we were adequately as efficient at Consuming material as we are at creating them. Mining and subsequently Consuming is respecting material! Using it up, reusing it and recontextualising it. Let’s glorify Consumption.
References
[1] Rognoli Valentina, “Worker Builder Your Own Machinery!” a workshop to practice the Technological Disobedience, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277326650_Worker_build_your_own_machinery_A_workshop_to_practice_the_Technological_Disobedience, 3.
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