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The Immaterialist

resilient living in a limitless world

Tag: massconsumption

September 21, 2020September 24, 2020

Interview #6: Balinese art activist Slinat

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Reflections. Reflect. #theimmaterislist #reflections #reflect #earthday2021

"If a man prefers the land he has discovered to the possession of this land, a painting or a statue to their material presence, it is insofar as they appear to him as possibilities open to other men” Simone de Beauvoir

"So why did I not defect to Toronkei’s community (Tornkei is a 19-year-old Maasai warrior)? It is a question that still troubles me. I was, as I had kept discovering, too soft for his life. I could not quite keep up physically. More importantly, I could not cope with the uncertainty: with the dislocation of not knowing whether I would eat today or eat tomorrow, or still possess a living – or a life – in a month’s time. The Maasai accepted the wild fluctuations in their fortunes with equanimity. In one season, their cattle would darken the plains; in the next, drought struck, and they had nothing. To know what comes next has been perhaps the dominant aim of materially complex societies. Yet, having achieved it, or almost achieved it, we have been rewarded with a new collection of unmet needs. We have privileged safety over experience; gained much in doing so, and lost much." George Monbiot, Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life

"An object is a frozen or fixed event." (Danish philosopher and artist Willy Ørskov)

Extract from my upcoming book Anti-trend:

Extract from my upcoming book Anti-trend on oppression and pollution:

Consumption—or minimal and/or well-informed consumption—can be a non-violent way of protesting against mindless overconsumption of unnecessary merchandise, unethical production methods, and the insignificance and poor quality of the majority of the products we surround ourselves with. In Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience from 1849, Thoreau argues that change must come from the individual. If there is something in the society, we live in that we don’t agree with or that goes against our moral fundament (and intuitively just feels wrong), we must protest. The essay is a defense for the individual’s right (and duty) to act based on moral values, even if these are in opposition to the norms of society or the demands of the government.Thoreau was put in jail after refusing to pay his taxes as a protest to slavery (he was determined to advocate respect for each individual and for individual freedom). In Civil Disobedience Thoreau argues that community taxes supporting highways and schools are ethical, but contrarily those supporting unjust war and enslavement are not. He continues by saying that we should be men first and subjects afterwards, and that we should cultivate respect for the right rather than for the law. If not, why are we equipped with a conscience?

What is beautiful and continuously aesthetically nourishing? This is an important question to ask when working with sustainable design and architecture. To Plato, a physical object can be considered beautiful if it clearly expresses the form or idea that gave birth to it. A beautiful chair, according to this way of thinking, is a chair that is clearly recognizable as being a chair and that is good at being a chair. There is thus a kind of precision to beauty. Beauty is precise and unambiguous in its expression. Beautiful physical objects are clearly expressed and decoded as what they are, at the same time as they are good at being what they are. Such as a viewpoint contains the germ of a functionalist approach to thinking aesthetics.

More blissful grounding. This time spiced up with colours and pigments🙏 #theimmterialist #handcrafted #ceramics #ceramica #handicrafts #handmade #colourbliss #colours #slow #slowness #slowmade #pigments #clay #kidsart #mallorca

Anti-trendy living is besides slowness and reduced consumption interlinked with resilience. Resilience is often connected to ecosystems and permaculture. Ecological resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem to respond to and recover from damage, disturbance or homogenization (often human led). The most resilient being; animal, plant -- or human being for that matter -- is a flexible, adjustable being. Simply put, if one is able to adjust to one’s environment; to get the most out of the nutrition available, regulate according to weather conditions, adapt to customs, enter communities, or if one can be both bendable and robust, well, then one is more likely to endure and thrive than if one is unbendable and stagnant. And importantly, diversity fosters resilience! #theimmaterialist #antitrend #antitrendyliving #resilience #adaptability #slow #bend #durability #ecosystem #diversity

I have had the pleasure of writing an article about the raw and rewilded design-object for the new amazing platform for design and crafts @formkraft.dk (in Danish!). Formkraft is a digital archive for design and crafts (dating back to 1948) as well as an online magazine. The first theme for the magazine is sustainability and durability. My article is beautifully accompanied by photos of design by e.g. @frejaloewe, @jonasedvardstudio and @margretheodgaard 🙏 Link in bio. #theimmaterialist #sustainability #rewilding #raw #aestheticsustainability #antitrend #durability #formkraft #frejaloewe #jonasedvard #margretheodgaard #danishdesign #crafts #aestheticnourisment #aesthetics #aestheticstrategy #sustainableconsumption #sustainabledesign #designstrategy #designobject #reducereuse #reduceconsumption #reducereuserecycle #antitrendresearch #anticonsumerism

I am writing and reading about nomads at the moment: nomadic indigenios tribes would never stay in the same place for too long, as it would make them vulnerable. Maybe we are not vulnerable in the same way; physically that is. But we are mentally vulnerable. Staying in one place our whole lives can potentially make us lethargic and closed-minded.

The silence. The sun. The mountains. Grateful 🙏

How I miss Bali!! @omunitybali @putu_omunitybali #theimmterialist #scooter #twodogs #freedom

Resilience can involve seeking the golden mean in one’s life - in the Aristotelian sense of the term - and hence pursuing a balance between too much and too little. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle is known for having said that you should behave in life as you would at a banquet; you should rise therefrom neither thirsty nor drunken. Living virtuously and authentically involves balancing between two extremes; between excess and deficiency. For example, the virtue of courage is a balancing act between recklessness and cowardice, and ambition between greed and sloth. In line herewith, living an anti-trendy life does not mean leaving society entirely and going off-grid, as this would be defined as deficiency, whereas over-consumption is excess. Or put differently; anti-trendy living is not the equivalent of living in asceticism or self-denial, as does it of course not include decadence. It involves finding a balance between extremes and being adaptable when necessary.

Sometimes creating something with our hands is like medicine, like therapy. It is a way of balancing the many hours most of us spend in front of screens. A beautiful way of loosing track of time for a while. And a great way to spend quiet time together. Today I enjoyed hours of blissful, concentrated quiet time with my youngest son at this beautiful place 🙏❤️ @katinaria.ceramicamediterranea #theimmaterialist #handcrafted #ceramics #ceramica #handmade #quiet #slow #love #aestheticnourisment #aesthetics #offline #pottery

Recently I have been preoccupied with democratic sustainability. Democratising sustainability requires an altering of both design practices, ways of manufacturing, and lifestyle. The latter involves status-symbols, habits and feel-good-patterns. Because as long as mindless consumption is the general norm, as long as discarding things when they are slightly worn out or broken is still the most common (and the cheapest) procedure, and as long as shopping is viewed as a reward for long work-hours, creating sustainable design solutions that encourage reduced consumption, challenges use-and-throw-away-habits, and favours repairs is a task that is not solely linked to affordability. Democratising sustainability requires a mix of accessible, affordable, durable and repairable things and a mass-consumer culture that favours longevity and creative mends - and perhaps even views decay and repairs as beautiful. #theimmaterialist #aestheticnourisment #decay #democraticsustainability #antitrend #sustainableliving #degrowth #consumption #reduce #overconsumption #slow #anticonsumption #design #designstrategy #aestheticsustainability #repair #mend #reuse #beauty

Mother nature's eye #theimmaterialist #naturebliss #mothernature #eye

Palma colours ❤️

Sustainable luxury ✨

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