Trash, Between the art and the way : a looking-glass for the material touch.

• Main Author: Harpet, Cyrille
• Other Authors: Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA Lyon), Université de Lyon-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2009
• Subjects: Recycling; Art; Material touch; Public health; Waste; Santé publique; Déchets; [SHS.HISPHILSO]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences; Norway; Tromso
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01618309; https://hal.science/hal-01618309/document; https://hal.science/hal-01618309/file/Article-Trash-recycling-english-version-conf-TROMSO-2009-Cyrille-Harpet.pdf

International audience In our contemporary society, waste poses new problems : indeed, it transgresses several barriers and limits : body barriers (risk of contamination), natural environment barriers, foods chain barriers and it even penetrates entire ecosystems through tiny particle fractions (dust).Waste, because of its tiny particles thus alters the limits between natural and artificial, between recycled and non-recycled, between microscopic and macroscopic, invisible and visible, stable and unstable material.Modern waste transcends our perception senses with properties and side effects that aren't perceivable as such immediately : « irradiation », «discrete pollutants », toxicity», « eco-toxicity ». Modern waste is characterised by molecular-sized products emanating from fine chemistry as well as by irradiating forms with the nuclear power industry.Unperceivable waste is anxiogenous. New technologies and sciences are thus being developed to collect, contain and control these “new intruders”. After having been prohibited within the artwork itself, and considered “ out of the art” for a long time or even downgraded to the category of “low-art”, it is only by the end of 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century that waste has finally been accepted as Art as such. At the same time the industrial world was accelerating its production rythm.