Re-Tracing Aesthetic Strategies in Times of Electronic Waste

Abstract

This paper starts with the assumption that we live in “Times of Waste”. Waste is haunting us, in waste we had to dwell, with waste we had to live, not against it. There is never nothing at the start, just as something is always leftover, a restless remainder of geological accumulations, of slags looking like the matter of which raw materials are extracted. Waste is not an inert matter, waiting to be discarded or upcycled by humans. Waste is alien matter, queer matter that “mobilizes relations” (Myra Hird). This is the situation in which media arts, the aesthetic, and the ecological enter the scene. By facing the displaced, and working through the abject, eco-aesthetic practices may provide vital ground for thinking. Especially in new media arts, diverse practices and progressive strategies making visible the dark side of the digital have been developed, e.g. tracing and tracking trash including waste of the extraction of raw materials, circuit bending, hardware hacking, accumulating or co-composing electronic-waste, computer gaming, resurfacing “deleted” data, as well as working with dismantlers in their workshops. Drawing upon theories of ecosophy, media-ecology, and new materialism as well as results of the own collective research project “Times of Waste” (2015-17), this paper will analyze and critically discuss contemporary new media and research projects dealing with the subject of electronic waste. It will ask where and how their aesthetic media strategies open up transversal potential – in times of waste haunting us with paralysis or whitewashing.