Post 25: Display/value

Two pretty full recycling bins. Photo taken from across the street and then extremely cropped to ensure it would be poor quality.

This isn’t something I’ve been thinking about, but it is something that occurred to me. I can also say something like “I have been looking for something to occur to me.” I’ve been scouting out occurrences, as the things I do think about are not currently fitting the mold of written sentences. [Fade to black on this comment.]

The “this” of the first sentence is the idea that what I want to make may have a lot in common with people’s recycling bins--not just the bins themselves, but specifically filled up bins placed on the curb--and more specifically the bins in Philly that look like the ones in the above photo. Either that, or it’s the idea that recycling bins have something to them that I’d like my made, 3-D things to have. (Does it make a difference from which direction a question gets asked? From which of the two contributing sides it approaches [my making → recycling bins / recycling bins → my making]?) (On another note, I wonder if thinking about the look of peoples’ recycling stems from the fact that most of my making takes place in cardboard [often an item I see in peoples’ bins]. It seems like this would be a reasonable starting point for these two entities coming together, though I don’t think it’s that much the case. I don’t really identify with cardboard in that way. There’s a sense in which it “doesn’t matter” to me that I use cardboard, and I can easily forget it’s what I use...)

Going back to the original passing thought of a link between what I desire to make and recycling bins, I find that there are aspects to this idea that have to do with both the look of a filled, blue bin, and the routine of putting out recycling to be collected. Though what actually may be most important to me is what lies in the space that seems to separate these two points: the way bins get “displayed” when they’re put out on the curb, and how they are only displayed in this in-between of getting put out and getting picked up. (Another question about the entirety of this: Am I getting involved with a recycling bin comparison because I feel my work is already compatible with recycling bins [their concept/their ”life” of sorts], or because I aspire for my work to be like them? This is often a question I have. What’s the difference between a feeling of connection and a feeling of admiration? I started this post by saying there may be something “in common” between the two parties. Does “in common” fall into being part of one of these terms--connection or admiration--more than the other?)

I guess I like where RBs (in so many posts I use one term over and over, so I’m trying out…abbreviations), land on a display/value graph. This is a graph I’m making up that has display on one axis and value on the other and a directly proportional relationship between the two terms (which is to mean: things said to have value are the things that receive the privilege of being displayed). Recycling bins feel like a sort of interrupter to this relationship. They get displayed (the fact that the look and contents of my neighbor’s recycling bins are some of the only belongings of theirs that I’ve ever seen somehow makes me consider the exposure recycling bins get as a display) despite being, in a traditional sense, completely worthless. The air time they have actually takes place simply because they’re worthless (because they’re made seeable only in order to be gotten rid of), which seems like a pretty rare display/value relationship.

These thoughts are hugely related to the fact that I often struggle with seeing things that are on display because of their worth (Is this status often implied? It does seem pinpointable when this relationship is in place: objects in museums, jewelry in glass cases, pictures in frames.) Somehow I have a hard time with the connection between display and worth. Partly, this is because the things I most like to see are things that have “no worth” and are often just accidentally displayed. Example photo below. Since my favorite things exist outside of display/value's positive slope, it’s hard to believe in the classic relationship between these two qualities, even though I can like seeing things that exist on this spectrum too. It seems strange to trust that some things deserve to be seen because they have a certain amount or kind of value when seeing is an act that works in so many unhierarchical ways. I guess what strikes me is that it’s not like I have a more valuable mode of seeing when it comes to looking at “more valuable” objects. I always think about that when I look at an art object--that I’m looking at it in more or less the same way that I look at a recycling bin. It seems like there are more types of objects than there are types of seeing.

One of a thousand possibles examples of something I like seeing.

I can be confused about engaging in the value-related mode of seeing that is “seeing because something is worth seeing.” Take looking at a painting in a museum. I often feel like I’m a little bit in the position of agreeing or disagreeing with the “seeing because it’s worth seeing” setup, and agreeing or disagreeing feels like a limited place to be able to see from. Anyway, I just love seeing things that not only are you not told they are worth seeing, you’re not even told they’re not worth seeing because that’s how little inherent value they have! (Exclamation because I’m excited about this, and somehow also because it may not be totally clear what I’m saying so at least my enthusiasm is something that can clearly come across.) I don’t know if this fondness is just due to my own contradictory instinct, but I think it’s also true to how ascribing value works; it needs to be built up rather than just taken on. It’s a relief for me to see something that doesn’t have value expectations already set up within it, as I suppose this then allows me to set up my own. This post was a lot less about recycling bins than I thought it was going to be, but I often think I’m going to write about something, and then just do a lot of writing about writing about it.