Retro Flat-Pack Technology Art

 

If it's not in a museum, and it's not art, it must be waste.

Lefebvre writes about waste as the necessary expenditure of energy; energy that explodes inwardly or outwardly; energy that must be spent. This energy always does work, the work of excess, the creation of more than necessary, the production of redundancy. This energy is more or less durable. Some of it gets consumed and re-released or spent almost immediately, as plant growth on derelict sites, for example. Other bits hang around, are slower to release their bound-up capacity. These things decay slowly, and can have extended relict states.


 
 

It's a container of sorts. It's a box that's not a box. It's an energy matrix. It's a retro technology made from bona fide stuff I found. I pulled up the carpet in the bathroom, and underneath the carpet was a linoleum floor. Isohedrons of variously colored tile were assembled precisely and adhered to a jute or sisal mat. It must have been made in the days before the foam-backed plastic that now comes in giant rolls. It may even have been hand-assembled. It's an obsolete product made with obsolete technology. It's durable excess.


 
 

Hand assembly is the aesthetic here. Minimal work, mechanically simple. I could have duct-taped the joints together, but liked the idea of binding the edges, keeping it simple, keeping the materials exposed. While looking around for wire, string, zip ties, thread, I spotted a bunch of rubber bands that I had collected off the sidewalk, where they'd been dropped by a mail carrier. I liked the idea of using two plasticky products, latex and rubber (or something like that), and the idea of a stretchy, flexible shape. Something that might even be a retro flat-pack product.


 


It's a container for obsolete technology. It's a diskette holder. You can fill it with junk. It comes with free internal dividers. You can repair it if the rubber bands break. You can flat-pack it for shipping. You can throw it away, give it away, turn it into something else. You can let the mice move in. It's a birdhouse. It's a boat.




It's a distorted image of the past.