HYPEROBJECTIFYING
The process of taking my own personal trash and cutting or tearing it up into smaller manageable pieces is itself an act of composting, as seen in The Urge to Suspend What Isn’t Kept #1-8. It is taking the monumental forces of capitalism and ecological destruction as a result of mass consumption and making them something that can be understood on an intimate, digestible scale. Timothy Morton describes monumental things such as trash as hyperobjects. According to Morton, the term hyperobject can be understood as:
not a function of our knowledge: it’s hyper relative to worms, lemons, and ultraviolet rays, as well as humans. Hyperobjects have already had a significant impact on human social and psychic space. Hyperobjects are directly responsible for what I call the end of the world, rendering both denialism and apocalyptic environmentalism obsolete. (2)
Hyperobjects, such as trash, are so monumental, and their timeframe for decomposition is centuries-long. As humans, we have a difficult time conceiving of effects of the capitalocene like pollution, waste, climate change, and putting them into perspective. These monumental things must be broken down, chewed on, and digested by microbes in order to be truly seen and recognized. Instead of thinking of digestibility as something that appeals to the masses, it is beneficial to think of digestibility as Including trash that has been broken down and partially digested is a key material for my practice precisely because it pauses the process and allows us to contemplate what it means to have to bond and metabolize these determining elements of the Capitalocene.
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