Words: Iris Su (@irrisirrisart)

“YOU ARE TRASH!”

1.

Obloquy[1] ; Censu[2] ; Vituperation[3] ; Imputation[4] ; Opprobrium[5] …Trash has become a byword!

Supremacism is at work.[6] The infiltration of media mechanisms is polarising the social model of the human species.[7]

It, the trash, the useless, is in a negative position, it is in opposition to the so-called good, it is associated with conflicts of interest. Algorithms are manipulating the human senses. Empty words and saturated images stimulate the cerebral cortex to amplify negative emotions. Humans have become more and more desensitised. When we judge others as trash… Are we, ourselves, trash?

Trash is a perspective.

It has been looked down on, stepped on, glanced at, and carelessly discarded. Trash is at the bottom of the social hierarchy and is an “undesirable” and “disposable” element of society.

The way we treat garbage is the same as the way we treat our fellow human beings. The formation of human society in the landfill, and the accumulation of trash creates the forms of human group societies.[8]

Human greed has created the values of the existing system.

If the interests of the majority prevail, then the misfits are treated as outliers. The two sides of things are becoming more and more antagonistic… only right or wrong… The dualist way of thinking allows power to become the only criteria. This is the desire of Social Darwinists.[9]

Now, piles of trash are laid out in front of you…You may feel guilty, but only slightly. The feeling will be fleeting, because you have nothing to gain from the existing system (because how can we find out the values from “non-value” waste?). Even if the trash drifts through countless transit stations, we will not care much about where the trash ends up.

2.

Trash is a metaphor.

The world is like a giant vessel of water.

It contains all the human consciousness over tens of thousands of years. The silt that settles in the riverbed is like the collective unconscious, which is part of the collective psyche of humanity. The individual unconscious is beneath the surface of the water, while consciousness floats above the surface, and the individual unconscious hides what is neglected on the conscious level.[11] Disordered assemblage of trash floating on the surface seems to be feedback on it.

Inspired by Carl Jung's thinking of the collective unconscious[12] and how Sigmund Freud interpreted the dream mechanism, my work trash (See Fig. 1) reflects the sense of powerlessness of individuals in the post-pandemic era into this river-flowing videos, with a poetic narrative to describe the collective's sense of vulnerability in the face of historical changes.

In this work, there is this passage in the narrative:

“Memory is forgotten, tampered with and discarded, unattended trash, drifting in the stream of consciousness until it submerges.”

Trash as the object in this film is metaphorically referred to as memory. The fluidity and the sense of floating from trash on the surface is like its physical manifestation, which is a socially and culturally constructed concept in a constantly changing state of concepts, symbols, and material flux.[14]

This fluidity is the main characteristic of trash, which flows through different systems as personal identities (See Fig. 2). It is unstable. Your race, religion, gender, ethnicity, country, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, etc. are imprinted on the way you look and act, like labels. The philosophical concept of liquid modernity proposed by Zygmunt Bauman magnifies the powerlessness of the individual in this era due to this instability.[15] Within different ideologies, you are not necessarily a vested interest in the globalised system, but you are bound to be defined as “trash” to some extent. Because the concept of trash is relative, it is the opposite of those who stand at different angles with vested interests.

The relativity of trash made me rethink the alternative possibilities for the existing value systems and hierarchies. There is no difference between people and commodities. The endless exploitation of commodities/human values in every aspect until it has no value - this is new slavery in modern era.[16] We are living in a world - in which people drift, go with the flow, motionless like corpses on the moving bodies of water, indistinguishable from trash (See Fig. 3).

Apart from the relationship between exploiting and being exploited, where can the future trend of contemporary human societies go?

3.

Plastic waste was picked up by artist Swaantje Güntzel on various beaches near Órzola/Lanzarote, and the trash “bathed” with the artist (See Fig. 4). It is a declaration of coexistence. Humans seem to be part of the trash; Individuals can trace the background of commodities waste from the product information, which is not much different from the secular standards applied to human beings.

Trash is a projection.

Our attentions have become the weapon of the information age. And the information we ignore is caught in the hegemonic cracks of polarised thinking. Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, White or Black, Male and Female, etc., we barely consider the other options in the middle of these two ends combinations. No matter which side you are in, labelling yourself seems to be a protective layer to hide your insecurities. Then the neglected parts are being abandoned to the waste landfill site.

The accumulation of Trash seems to be a sort of manifesto. The garbage is reassembled; The chaotic aesthetic allows trash to be indistinguishable (See Fig. 5). It may be defined as mob crowds, but the information eroded on the trash seems to suggest that the past is no longer so important. It is a kind of attention, a kind of reconciliation; Because disorder by implication is unlimited, and chaos is also a kind of power.[17] Trash can serve to understand the key global capitalist forces driving our world as they push us to the brink of self-destruction.[18] But interestingly, in contrast to hegemony, which is maintained through control and organisation, disorder and chaos are considered threats to social stability.[19] This relativity seems to make us think about The Middle Way,[20] and perhaps look for a new way of thinking about reforming the old system.

Some public art projects like Activate 2750 (See Fig. 6)[21] and PLASTISPHERE/Promenade Thessaloniki (See Fig. 7) used the power of chaos to rethink the relationship among existing production, consumption, and disposal systems. They played with a somewhat closed-loop system in the performance, recollecting and repurposing waste materials sent to landfills into the public domain. Meanwhile, the expression of this force – the interactive performance of trash and human being together – seems to seek a positive possibility of cooperation.

From dealing negatively with trash in the existing value system…to actively co-exist with trash…This is a change of the mentality, also a change of the projection, among human beings. The narrative transition from the perspective of the other to the first person (transition from the perspective of the object to the perspective of the subject) - this research approach feeds back into my practice methodology.

Trash is regarded as the object in my camera lens, and its appearance and the form and the environment in which it is located are the primary contents of the images. Through the overlooking angle of the optical lens, I realised that the object of the trash was compromised, consumed, and exploited in this process (See Fig. 8). There is a silent distance between the camera’s perspective - my perspective - the viewer’s perspective - and the trash, something like a mismatch of class attributes. It seems like I am blackmailing humanity for sympathy, for the negative role of trash? Trash has become a victim.

Projecting a Freudian psychoanalysis onto myself allows me to trace back my experiences in different social systems around the world.[22] I wonder, I complain, my senses magnified by the actions of others. Did I do anything wrong? My fragile ego made me think of myself as trash.

“All human beings deserve to die!” I realised that my thoughts had been manipulated by the media mechanisms. I am not gradually moving towards one of these ends to justify such extremes. Human beings are selfish and pathetic? Possibly. But I have also overlooked the unknown people and things that contribute to human society (and, by analogy, to the natural world).[23]

When I focus on the idea of “trash as the bottom of the hierarchy,” I ignore the fact that most contexts for trash are “confined to artificially negative concepts.”

“TRASH IS THE HUMAN COMMUNITY ITSELF.”

This is not a third-person perspective; This is not a pessimistic and negative assessment:

Trash is:

a perspective (human looking down on garbage),

a metaphor (human as garbage, stinky and lowly),

and a projection (human interest choice and side).

Instead, this is the human species’, our, own narrative; This should be a positive observation, filled with optimism motivation:

Trash is:

a perspective (eye level: we have an equal perspective with garbage),

a metaphor (trash is a thought that we have neglected and needs to be picked up again),

and a projection (a new worldview and the reforming power of the masses).

The way to view trash and dispose of trash – is how to break the limits of hierarchy, ideology, and conventional thinking. Are we going to fight and compete with trash or are we going to interact and cooperate with it?

4.

The sense of distance generated by the lens angle, is created by the acrylic transparent board and the laser-cut patterns above - some machine-generated, chaotic, combination of points and lines (See Fig. 9). We can peek into what is going on behind us: a plastic-textured flat object on a surface similar to a body of water, framed by a rectangle, like a lens. The reflection of light from this hazy sense of uncertainty seems to convey a signal to us: a critical thinking, a dominance of the sensation, a confusion of thoughts.

Physical and mental landscape depicted by Bill Viola in his work the Reflecting Pool and its philosophical nature, through complex post-production, manipulated the layering of images to divert the viewer’s perception and consciousness (See Fig. 10). The connections and interplay between the outer world and the inner realm magnify the subjectivity.[24] Through a cycle of the layer reflections in Pool, Viola presents an image of rebirth.[25]

I let the different characteristics brought about by the transformation of the medium allow the visual nature of the image to grow freely. The collision of digital and analogue signals makes this sense of distance become layered. Trash is the main expanded object, but the pattern is hidden behind the layer (See Fig. 9). Layers act as filters between hierarchies, but adjusting the transparency allows us to peer into the bottom, where the trash is. Layers also act like the brain’s conscious mechanisms to bring to light what has been suppressed; The conscious level (censorship) suppresses what we really think, and we resist it in a form of camouflage and concealment in the subconscious body of water.[26]

Trash as the subject amplifies this ambiguity - the feeling of being in the middle; the attitude of not leaning towards either side of the extreme and taking sides. I am interacting with trash, trying to think about a possible solution.

Trashification[27] is a golden middle way.[28]

The choice goes both ways, but it is not absolute, as the circular system of nature, as the cycle of human history. The dirty, ugly decomposers have become the unheralded heroes of recycling as the end of nature, and decomposition promotes the growth of new things.[29] Like Yin and Yang, the two sides of things are interchangeable: opposing or opposite forces are complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in nature.[30] The same is true of the process of processing images, and I emulate these scavengers, these dirty things of modern human culture, to parasitise, to corrupt, to decompose (See Fig. 11). The discursive in this work is erased…The trash forms are preserved by intuition.

An unremarkable piece of trash floating on a canal/drifting onto the beach, de-trashifies itself in the process (layering); New clues are dug up, new values and definitions are given; Trash is not only the content of the image itself, but it also becomes part of the materiality of the image.

5.

Trashification is a way of care.

The value of trash is re-recognised. So-called waste would be considered treasured in another life or other social system. I pick up the elements that I have neglected during the process. I realised that the chaotic assemblage aesthetic is the apparatus in my practice, and free association[31] led my subconscious mind. I try to break the limits between mediums, and my scribbles are the links between different mediums, seemingly the protective layers. The changes of pattern levels and perspectives (obscuration) brought about by the change of mediums leads to a new definition of trash (See Fig. 12 and Fig. 13).

Trash is no longer a slur; Trash becomes a compliment.

When I am trashifying found objects, it is not a process of defining things as junk, but a process of re-discovering the so-called usable value in this world - The process of ‘trashification’ is de- ‘trashification’. “There is no material which is intrinsically trash.”[32] From de- (degradation, decomposition, deconstruction…) to re- (rehabilitation, revaluation, redefinition…), this is a circular system of way of thinking. (See Fig. 14)

Notes:

1. It is a noun, which means “very strong public criticism or blame.” The words from note 1st to 5th are retrieved from Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved from: Obloquy | definition in the Cambridge English dictionary, accessed November 25, 2024.

2. Noun, strong criticism, or disapproval.

3. Noun, the language that is full of hate, or angry criticism.

4. Noun, a suggestion that someone is guilty of something or has a particular bad quality.

5. Noun, severe criticism, and blame.

6. One group (the presumed superior) has supreme authority over all others. This is a form of discrimination. Retrieved from: “Supremacism,” Wikipedia, November 20, 2024.

7. Media algorithms control the preferences of platform users and information recipients, which affects the extreme trend of public opinions and thinking patterns.

8. Inspired by Rem Koolhaas’s critical interpretation of the simplified and dull architectural replicas of recognisable urban landscapes under the commodities economies, I think about the relationship between the linguistic definition of trash and the abstract space of human society from the perspective of his relativistic use of space. Referring to: Rem Koolhass and Hal Foster, Junkspace / Rem Koolhaas; with, Running Room / Hal Foster, (London: Notting Hill Editions, 2013).

9. The term of Social Darwinism applies Charles Darwin’s thinking on evolutionary biology to human society. The idea of racial superiority and competition became parts of the core of the doctrine and emphasised the concept of the strong and the weak. Referring to: “Social Darwinism,” Wikipedia, November 22, 2024.

10. I was inspired by the notion of “brain in a vat.” If putting the brain in a vat/jar in accept the same as the head of the brain’s electrical signals, for the brain, it is not at all certain whether it is in a jar or a skull. This extends to the related view of subjective idealism: the world may be false, but what is real? Referring to: Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010).

11. C. G Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, (Second edition, Vol. 9, Taylor and Francis, 2014, doi:10.4324/9781315725642), 42-53.

12. Jung, The Archetypes, 42-53.

13. Some of the repressed contents materials can enter consciousness through dreams in distorted forms. Dreams are the feedback form of subconscious. Referred to: Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, and Angela Richards, The Interpretation of Dreams (London: Penguin, 1991).

14. Gillian Whiteley, Junk: Art and the Politics of Trash / Gillian Whiteley, (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 24.

15. Liquid Modernity is used to describe the fluidity and unpredictability of contemporary social, economic and cultural processes in the face of rapid change. It is also a metaphorical way to describe the constant flow and change of contemporary relationships, identities, and the global economy. Referred to: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity / Zygmunt Bauman, (Cambridge: Polity, 2000).

16. Kevin Bales, Disposable People New Slavery in the Global Economy / Kevin Bales, (Rev. ed. with a new preface, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012, doi:10.1525/9780520951389), 232-262.

17. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo, (1st ed. Routledge, 1966. doi:10.4324/9780203361832), 94.

18. Amanda Boetzkes, Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste / Amanda Boetzkes, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2019).

19. Whiteley, Junk: Art, 29.

20. It is a Buddhist term that refers to spiritual practice and way of life that avoids extremes. It also includes a realistic view that avoids the extremes of extinction and commonness. Retrieved from: “Middle Way,” Wikipedia, November 18, 2024.

21. “C3West | Ash Keating: Activate 2750,” Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), n.d.

22. Because of the discrimination I experienced living under different regimes, I underwent a period of psychoanalytic therapy to help me with my personal identical issue. Combined with Freudian psychoanalysis, human behaviour is influenced by unconscious memories, thoughts, and impulses, and our present is shaped by the past. Referring to: “Psychoanalysis,” Wikipedia, November 24, 2024.

23. Many of the lower social devotees are unknown, similar to the dissolvers of nature. They are stigmatised in some contexts. I will bring up this analogy again when I explain “Trashification is a golden middle way” in next page.

24. Bill Viola et al., Bill Viola: Installations and Videotapes (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1987).

25. Viola, Bill Viola: Installations.

26. Freud, Strachey, and Richards, The Interpretation.

27. It is from trash + ification. It means the act of trashifying and turning something into trash.

28. “Middle Way,” Wikipedia. It is similar to “golden mean” as well, which can refer to Aristotelian virtue ethics. Referring to: “Golden Mean (Philosophy),” Wikipedia, November 2, 2024.

29. Alan Watson Featherstone et al., “Decomposition and Decay,” Trees for Life, August 22, 2024.

30. The concept of Yin-Yang is from Chinese philosophy that describes two complementary forces that are interconnected and counterbalance each other. Robin R. Wang, “Yinyang (Yin-Yang),” Internet encyclopedia of philosophy, accessed November 26, 2024.

31. It is a process of expressing conscious content (such as by speaking or writing) without censorship to help understand the subconscious mind. It is part of the psychoanalysis. Retrieved from: “Psychoanalysis,” Wikipedia.

32. Whiteley, Junk: Art, 29.

About Iris Su

Iris Su’s practice explores the material and metaphorical dimensions of waste in search of alternative values within human systems. Informed by psychological theories and personal experience across cultural and political contexts, Su works across drawing, photography, moving image, sound, and installation. Her layered, often chaotic compositions investigate the emotional, political, and material states of being “in-between,” where transformation becomes both process and strategy.