smartphone object biography
Times of Waste
The research team of Times of Waste presents an online smartphone object biography, a multifarious mapping of the intricate routes and transformation processes behind the production, use and disposal of smartphones. Using artistic-scientific research practices and various media, the team investigates waste materials and the fields of human work surrounding them – from local landfills, repair shops or research laboratories, to global contexts. The “concatenation” of the various media fragments makes it possible to place the routes and transformation processes in an overall context, to choose individual paths through the materials available online, and thus to create a unique joined-up story:
smartphone object biography (in English and German)
The research project Times of Waste is about movement. The interdisciplinary team tracks paths and transport routes of (waste) materials and objects. For electronic waste, the transformation processes and revaluations of a smartphone and its components are examined as examples. It is a regular everyday device that leaves many types of waste. The greatest amount of waste, however, is produced long before it is used for the first time. Especially in the “extraction” of raw materials such as neodymium, which is mined under precarious ecological, socio-economic and health conditions, huge amounts of waste are produced.
