Maycroft, Neil and Cheang, Shu Lea (2015) Dust-off. [Artefact]
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| Item Type: | Artefact |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
Abstract
The fan of a motherboard switches on and off intermittently. It blows household dust, removed from the inside of a computer carcass, into the air. The dust then settles onto the motherboard, to be blown off again. This continual movement of dust is contained in the piece. However, it should remind us that the ceaseless creation and motion of unconfined dust accompanies all stages of the e-waste journey.
| Additional Information: | Dust has pervaded this project, in many and unexpected ways. We have been covered in dust, breathed dust, and been infected by dust. Dust has been a surprising and provocative companion. Our first encounter with ‘fresh’ e-waste, at the V&A, was disappointing due to the absence of dust covering the freshly disposed carcasses. Also a surprise was the amount of dust we found inside the discarded computers we dismantled in Hong Kong. These machines suck in dust in startling quantities. The dust, both present and absent, in these two cases was very much the familiar dust of everyday domestic life; the stuff we find clinging to our furniture and filling our vacuum cleaners. It is the organic dust of human skin debris, pet hairs and dust mites; a fertile, rich medium. The other types of dust we have encountered have been much more dangerous. This has reminded us that dust is not a stuff but a category. What comprises specific dusts varies with the activities and locations where we find e-waste processing. Inorganic dusts comprising heavy metals, and other toxic and indigestible fragments, poison and infect people, animals, and the land itself. Most startling was the dense layer, thick as fur, of metal and plastic dust that coats the machinery at high-tech recycling factories. These different varieties of dust extract various kinds of revenge; familiar, organic dust clogs the machine, accelerating its journey to obsolescence, while the dangerous dust of e-waste processing retaliates against both individual bodies and the social body whose hubris set the whole process in motion. A measure of dust for a measure of dust. |
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| Keywords: | E-waste, Obsolescence, Performance, Bodies |
| Subjects: | W Creative Arts and Design > W100 Fine Art W Creative Arts and Design > W212 Multimedia Design W Creative Arts and Design > W240 Industrial/Product Design |
| Divisions: | College of Arts > School of Architecture & Design > School of Architecture & Design (Design) |
| Related URLs: | |
| ID Code: | 18224 |
| Deposited On: | 04 Aug 2015 08:42 |
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