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The Immaterialist

resilient living in a limitless world

Tag: repair

October 5, 2022October 6, 2022

Anti-trendy design: a hymn to rawness, flexibility and repairability

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September 20, 2022October 5, 2022

Whatever Lasts: Ongoing conversation with Isabelle McAllister

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"When working with aesthetics and the aesthetic experience, there are two fundamental and important terms to consider: the beautiful and the sublime. These two terms, which in many ways represent two fundamentally different sides of the aesthetic experience, have been made subject to numerous philosophical theses and art historical discussions. In the following section, I will draw on a few of these, since they have influenced my interpretation of the durable expression and aesthetic sustainability. The historical division between the beautiful and the sublime indicates that an aesthetic experience is not necessarily linked to beauty, but can also be induced by the unpleasant, unbalanced, distorted, or even hideous. This could include a dilapidated old house or a frightening demonic figure in a gothic church.

"The anti-trendy design-object is underdone in the sense that when it is released into the world by the designer it is not yet finished. Usage finishes it, as the object is created to develop and to embrace change and decay. The anti-trendy design-object is characterized by gently nudging the user toward sustainable living; whether that means inviting more textural stimulation into life by investing in handcrafted artefacts that are anti-smooth or texturesque, engaging in nourishing daily rhythms that can provide life with a sense of direction and with the beauty of continuity and perseverance, or by allowing for more rawness, inconvenience, and heaviness in life in order to escape the despair and the dullness that follows detachment from nature and a life in a homogeneous physical—and cultural—environment."

One of the major realizations that I have made throughout the research for and the writing of this book is that the number one obstacle when it comes to eliminating over-consumption and the pollution and oppression that follows in the wake is a combination of our cultural and societal norms and trends influenced by capitalism and the credulous praise of growth—and in part that our idea of the good life seems to be interlinked with consumption: consumption of luxurious food and drink, exotic holidays, fancy cars, and of a continuous stream of new clothes, gadgets, and entertainment.

Here in Bali everything is visible: there is hardly any waste management and no sewer system. There is no public transportation, making immense traffic necessary. The lack of waste management triggers trash to be dumped in nature or burned, causing visible pollution: plastic waste is pouring down the mountain sides and filling up beaches. Toxic smoke fills the air when households burn a mix of plastic waste and kitchen garbage. I have had lots of visitors from Europe, who have been appalled by these scenarios. And I understand: It is not pretty to look at. All the things we conveniently shelter ourselves from in developed countries (like my birth country Denmark); obscene scenarios like the chicken-pig-transport-one and the immense pollution we are all facing worldwide is not hidden here. But hiding things we don’t like to face obviously doesn’t make them disappear; nearly 20 million pigs are slaughtered annually in Denmark alone. When it comes to chickens, the number is an astounding 125 million out of which the majority (98%) are “industry chickens”, which basically means that they are bred to grow unnaturally fast and live their short lives (35 days in average) in massive buildings with artificial light. So actually, and absurdly, the chickens we experience here in Bali being kept in small cages and transported in wobbly minivans in the tropical heat are not really any worse off than their Danish congeners. The only difference is that the lives of the Danish chickens are kept from sight. It is just more comfortable that way. Another difference is that a large part of chickens here in Bali are actually free-range chickens; like really free range. They roam around the villages, and when one is needed for a ceremony or a meal it is caught and slaughtered. But of course, when they are slaughtered, you will hear their screams; and no, it is not very comfortable. Again, the main (or only) difference between the way things are done here and in developed countries is that nothing is hidden. Everything is visible and audible; the ugliness, the unjust, the abuse, the pollution, the inequality, the suffering. Everything.

Here in Bali, pigs and chickens are transported in horrific small cages in the baking sun. When I ride my motorbike behind one of the many small, creaking chicken or pig trucks I can literally smell the fear of the animals; it is a nauseating sweet smell that mixed with the stink of old blood and rotting flesh almost makes me vomit. Pigs are forced into tube-like cages making them unable to move during transportation, and when left in the baking, tropical sun their skin turns bright red. They must be so scared, my son always says, when we encounter one of these dreadful animal transports. And I am sure they are. I often hear the screams of the pigs when they are being forced into the cages; they sound like young children screaming from the top of their lungs. And then after they have been locked in, unable to move, they are silent. As have they given up. You can see the fear in their eyes, my son says. And I know what he means; I have on several occasions been next to a pig transport at a red light staring into their big dark empty eyes.

Maybe it is when we lose sight of that wisdom; the understanding and appreciation of our interconnectivity, and hence when a disconnect from our fellow humans and from our natural surroundings sets in that we feel despaired and lost. I know that I have hit the wall of despair on several occasions throughout my adult life, and I know that most (if not all) of my friends have too. When we no longer feel connected, our competitive, jealous, bitter, aggressive trait starts to grow; it gets nourished by our sense of isolation and “each-to-their-own”, by more wants more and by our culture’s sagas of monetary success and of valueless decay. It gets nourished by us not ever feeling good enough, beautiful enough, clever enough, by us convincing ourselves that we must strive harder, be better, be a more perfect version of ourselves (whatever that means) in order to fit in. But it withers when natural “pesticides” like our sense of belonging and human interconnectivity are poured over it (preferably in thick, lush streams)

At the moment, I am writing about fostering a nourishing connection to our natural surroundings in my new book Uncultivated. This is a brief quote from one of the chapters:

Most of us spend a significant amount of money and time accumulating stuff. We hoard and store loads of things that we never use, and that we forget we even have. Why? Does it make us feel safe or at home in the world? It seems like we think that things have a strangely weighty power that keeps us grounded. The things we use and cherish regularly—due to their functionality and/ or aesthetics—make up just a small percentage of the things we own. These things are our favorite clothes, our preferred cups and glasses, our beloved lamp and chair, the bicycle that we use to get to and from work, our cherished books, framed photos, and paintings, etc. Henceforth, if we only need a few well-designed, aesthetically pleasing things to feel nourished aesthetically and to fulfill our daily practical needs, narrowing down our assets to only our favorite things would make perfect sense. But somehow the thought of doing so is anxiety provoking. What if we miss that book or that bowl someday that we got rid of? What if we felt like wearing that pink ’80s sweatshirt that we no longer have? What if we suddenly were to have a tea party for thirty people and needed all those excess teacups, we gave to the charity shop? Then what? Well, honestly, that day will probably never come.

“People aren’t the apex species they think they are. Other creatures—bigger, smaller, slower, faster, older, younger, more powerful—call the shots, make the air, and eat sunlight. Without them, nothing.”

I want to share some of the books I have read and enjoyed the most over the past couple of months. Including the book I am currently reading: Bewilderment by Richard Powers.

"The Japanese aesthetic philosophy of Mono no aware holds an inherent encouragement to notice and appreciate our physical environment. It is an incentive to enjoy the pathos or the ambience of the things with which we share our lives, and it is, importantly, a hymn to the constant changes around us—and within us—that manifest in our physical surroundings. seasons that change, trees that bloom and wither, and rainstorms that move in merging sky and sea only to clear up into blueness or the reddish-purple bliss of a sunset. Flowers blossom for a short while and then deteriorate, fruits are juicy and fragrant but only for a short while before they start to rot, and animals die and turn into food for other animals or nourish the soil beneath them. This concept is not only a hymn to natural alterations, it also contains an encouragement to cherish the slow changes in our physical artifacts: traces of usage on a beloved chair, the wear and tear that manifests on a jacket or a pair of cherished trousers and that tell stories of the owner’s life and habits, or the decay of an old building that has hosted generations of people and has been shaped by their lives. In other words, mono no aware values slow alteration as well as quick deterioration; or both long-term usage and slow aesthetic nourishment and perishable, volatile, short-lived aesthetic experiences. Mono no aware is the ultimate ode to everything always being in flux: to the shifts and alterations that characterize the world we live in as well as human life. It celebrates, rather than bemoans, deterioration, decay, and things and experiences coming to an end."

I listened to such a thought-provoking podcast this morning (link in stories). The topic was easy and difficult beauty and revolved around a new book with the title Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones (that I am definitely planning to read).

"So, does that mean that the more informed we are, the more ethically we act? I presume that to an extent that is how it works, which is also why facts-based and story-based communication about environmental issues are definitely important. But, however important doomsday scenarios might be in order for us to understand the impact of overconsumption and single-use plastic packaging, they can also be discouraging—as reflected in the anecdote about my son’s environmental despair. We don’t need hopelessness and stoicism at the moment. We need action. It appears that not enough sustainable action comes out of the current frightening scenarios talked about in various forms of media. Why? Because we are mean or indifferent? No, of course not. As Kierkegaard puts it no one can will evil.

“All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him strong; he will be good. He who could do everything would never do harm.”

I am reading up on French philosopher Rousseau at the moment. Particularly his seminal work Emile, or On Education. It is an amazing read and very inspirational for my uncultivated writing project.

Why are we so busy cultivating everything – human beings, nature? What is lost in the process? Enchantment? Chaos? Beauty? Unpredictability? What happens when everything that is supposed to be unruly is tamed, caged, cultured? The loss of magic is a loss of empathy.

I have been looking forward to sharing this new beautiful project with you!

You probably know the three R’s of sustainability - they are like a mantra or rule of thumb when working with sustainable design: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. And they are definitely useful - well, to an extent. However, I normally focus on reduction of consumption in my writings and research though. Not that it isn’t important to reuse discarded things or to recycle waste materials, but because no take-back or recycle-systems in the world can keep up with the speed we are consuming at right now. There is just too much stuff. Too many unwanted, short-lived things. Too much waste. But despite my preaching of radical reduction of consumption I am in the process of rewriting the three infamous R’s altogether as a part of my uncultivated book project. My new three R’s are: Rebel, Reframe, Rewild. Why? Well, first of all, civil disobedience is in high demand to put an end to endless piles of packaging, new meaningless convenience products and the creation of new, unaesthetic, insignificant things (therefore; Rebel). Secondly, we need to change our perspective on consumption altogether; to usage of and investments in aesthetically sustainable, flexible, raw things that can develop with us and beautify our daily lives continuously (reframe). And thirdly, my personal favourite: Rewild. Rewilding, simply put, means creating a framework and then letting go of control. It is an uncultivated approach to the design process that I look forward to elaborating on further in future posts.

We are all connected and interwoven with our natural surroundings. Through that innate connection we belong. Both my sons know this, but my youngest son in particular understands and lives by this wisdom. It hasn’t been cultivated out of him (yet): I watch him almost literally becoming a part of his surroundings when he plays, swims, bicycles, and pets the (growing amount of) animals in our household.

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