Free-wheeling through Nature: On the Perception of a Material

Designing Matter, Essay, expanding design practices, Meredith Miller, No Density, Possible Mediums, Technology and fabrication, Thom Moran

Architecture&nature, Comfort, Cultural agitator, Designing Matter, Ecology, Essay, Material experimentation, Materials, New materials, Plastic, Pollution, Research

This essay is part of "Possible Mediums" by Kelly Bair, Kristy Balliet, Adam Fure and Kyle Miller, published by Actar Publishers -- https://lccn.loc.gov/2018931568

While entirely unscientific, this litmus test elicits a knee-jerk reaction to a given material in excess and reveals our assumptions about its relative cultural value. For many of us, it’s a no-brainer: we don’t (or shouldn’t) like plastic. But plastics are amazing! They have enabled humanity to enter outer space and made our mattresses more comfortable, among other things. It’s clear that plastic can do almost anything other materials can do. This capacity inspired Roland Barthes to write, “…this amazement is a pleasurable one, since the scope of the transformations gives man the measure of his power and since the very itinerary of plastic gives him the euphoria of prestigious free-wheeling through Nature.”