All last “holidays” I’ve made I was thinking about rubbish and nature. These two worlds seem to become one. I've never thought it would be possible to swim in the ocean next to the rubbish stain. And I would not say that it is the most simple or underdeveloped places in the world.
I’m trying to separate the fact and narrative. Fact is that each day is more and more polluted with further consequences for nature. The narrative is that rubbish becoming an integral part of nature in a way that it can be appreciated as a new type of flower or element of the landscape.
I will not discuss here how horrible it is for nature but I want to understand this subject in a sense how we see things.
First, a subject of rubbish has its place. It is a city where the landscape is dominated with pavement and urban elements like cars, buildings, it seems to be natural to have a couple of plastic bags lying or flying around, or colourful paper rubbish lies on the street. But when we move the same objects into nature it immediately stands out. I think it is mainly because of colour, though plastic can be transparent still from its material it will be never integrated into the environment. So this rubbish visual picture possible mainly outside of the city. You can’t miss it physically only if you are blind.
Second, who is a receiver of these visual objects and is it intended to be seen? As pollution mainly happens in nature it is people who live close to it or time to time participate in this life. So it can be each of us. We can go to a park or for a walk on a riverbank and of course, we can be direct viewers of this master (“rubbish’) piece of humanity.
“Culture ...is the social behaviour and norms found in human societies. Culture is considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies.” (Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture[Accessed 29/08/18]) If we use this pattern for our subject then it easily can be that this is the norms and social behaviour which happens outside of the city in nature. People pollute and throw rubbish everywhere. As a result, can we call it a visual culture? Visual rubbish culture. Once we are in such a place we become a part of this as a viewer and observer. In other words, sometimes (or always?) visual culture can be imposed?
It is a fact that Visual Rubbish Culture exists, assimilate and flourish outside of the city in many places of the world. But it is not clear why some can see it as a negative element and some just don’t see it at all. For instance, Robert Rauschenberg used rubbish as part of his works. Also, the last group of ignorant people cannot see it but sill support it (spread the rubbish around) or there are people who arrange their waste into the rubbish bin but still don’t have an opinion about this problem.
I think that answer is a culture of particular people. Education, social upbringing, level of moral – everything is involved in the understanding of particular visual culture and it doesn’t matter if it is a piece of art or rubbish, the key to see the subject and recognise it in our culture and in our level of education.
Comments