These process images look at existing acts of collecting and purging throughout Snipiskes, they attempt to bring in interests so far including causal patterns, language, relationships and narrative (personification). They illustrate the relations between the non-human, human and spatial and have been produced with ideas on Actor Network Theory in mind; acknowledging the agency of non-human and how they can transform space and relationships.
‘The Expeller’ (above) explores a story imagined from the presence of the bed flung out onto the rubbish collection. Here, we can see more obvious processes of collecting and purging with the collection of discarded objects (rubbish bags, tires) which have been purged out of ownership of whoever has left them there. The diagram tries to identify the moments of collecting and purging throughout the process, but often they blur into each other and are not so clearly distinguished.
The hidden story line in the ‘Expeller’ is the emotional connection between the bed and the former owner (with regard to the ‘Collections & Relationships’ post), who is imaged to have collected an emotional build-up of hurt and anger having been betrayed by their partner. The physical act of throwing out the associated object, in this case the bed, their feelings of hurt and anger have some release – are purged. In terms of ANT and non-human agency, the moment the bed hits the pile of rubbish, the space is for a moment transformed from a practical area for refuse collection to a space of therapy. For this reason, I have found this particular space and it’s display of collecting and purging particularly interesting and aim to investigate further.
Other situations of collecting and purging have been drawn out, each naming themselves by how the ‘things’ found in them interact with each other – an exercise of describing as previously discussed in ‘Language choice, relationships and altering perspectives’.
Infrastructures of Autonomy 