The Destiny of “Refuse” in a Impure Society

We want to be even too angelis: our city wants to get rid of odors, bad or good ones in every way possible…dirty is politics: politics is shame, but the degree of shame varies from culture to culture, from one historical moment to another. An objective condition however, is the existence of the need to dispose waste and this is why I believe it is a reality we need to accept and take advantage of, not to battle against and see as a shame and, therefore, need to “hide”. According to Godard, history today is contained in the history of cinema and the rest exists in the images we have. Our eyes are compelled to see through lenses of those that have already taken the picture, filmed, documented. In effect, I have no choice: form and direction are already embedded in the territory, and my task is only to reveal them, by building little by little the inner structure: the rhythm, the melody and harmony, the out of key places, subjected to my study. I find myself in the conditions of the founders when they had to domesticate an uninhabited place or a place inhabited before. A territory, for those who have just arrived is actually caos, a land that has to be acknowledged for its power, and to work with it by looking for it or avoiding it, strenghtening it or weakening it. Cities are scattered by buidings that do not belong to us, shored up by questionable, ambiguous, insignificant, indifferent architectures.Consider in this case the different incinerators, the fenced in places for waste disposal waiting to be treated to later reach other contexts, other dumps and consider all those spaces that interest the theme, object of this study. The environment is just not a figure. In it there are objective physical conditions and proportions of hygeine, climate, and of pollution. What do we feel in observing the magma of waste invading the earth sometimes in a respectful way, controlled, and sometimes completely free imposing without respect? The landscape continuously modifies to accomodate disposal and collection of waste but how aware are we that it’s a reality that will always accompany our life and how much are we willing to accept it and see it as an opportunity to plan and not as a problem to battle? In particular, this article is part of a more integrated study on the subject of waste, which has now descripted through the eyes of artists who have looked for the material, the feeling… of their works in the waste.