In 2080, less than a generation from now, the world is on track to hit a crucial geological milestone. According to the Amsterdam-based designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, the largest metal reserves will no longer be below ground. They’ll be above it, embedded in smartphones, appliances, and other forms of wealth, which will “stream freely across the the surface of the planet–as if through a continuous, borderless continent.” Instead of mining ore from the earth, it will be “remined” from the millions of tons of e-waste that the world produces.
经营工作室的Trimarchi和Farresinformafantasma，在过去的几年中，人们认为设计在生产越来越多的物体和越来越多的浪费中的作用。他们采访了回收商，激进主义者，决策者和其他专家。得到维多利亚国家美术馆的支持，more recently，MOMA高级策展人Paola Antonelli，他们还制作了一系列视频，可视化和physical objectsbased on their research.
最终结果称为Ore Streams, made its debut last week at the Milan Triennale as part of the symposium and exhibition,Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival. All of their research is available online as a media-rich website, too. “We believe it is important to share with others our findings and to offer the opportunity to appropriate our own research,” the founders say over email. “We did not envision this outcome at the beginning of the project. Nevertheless we felt the urgency to give more context to the work.”
It turns out that ore (a term for rock from which any valuable metal can be derived) can tell you a lot about how capitalism came to be.Ore Streams在那个令人不安的历史上进行了零，追踪设计如何帮助建立了当今制造，消费和丢弃产品的极大浪费方式。
The project’s centerpiece is a 25-minute visual essay that traces the colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and their land for mining through to the emergence of capitalism, as tons of metal and other by-products made their way to Europe, enabling manufacturers to produce more and more consumer goods at less and less cost.
如今，由于电子废物已从美国和其他国家出口到其边界上，然后经常被幼儿清理，因为它们有毒但有价值的金属，因此，由于电子垃圾被出口到美国和其他国家，因此被“放松”了。
技术companies are driving this process by developing components that are either proprietary, unfixable, or un-recyclable. As phones have gotten thinner, companies have started putting them together with glue instead of screws, further complicating recycling. The competition for thinner, better, and newer is heralding a second-coming of colonialism throughout the world,矿石流concludes. Thanks to e-waste, the process of colonial exploitation is repeating itself, the narrator explains: “Developing countries are exploited twice, first for raw materials, then for dumping grounds.”
其他Ore Streamsvideo documents the history of planned obsolescence. The term was invented by economist Bernard London during the Great Depression, when London noticed that people were using their old shoes, furniture, and cars rather than buying replacements. His idea? Give these consumer goods an official lifespan, enforced by the government. “After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally ‘dead,'” London wrote in 1932. People would be forced to buy new goods, buoying the economy.
当然，伦敦的愿景略有关闭。这不是政府在我们的事物上执行到期日期，而是制造它们的公司。科技巨头停止支持较旧的电话，因为他们已经通过新型号“创新”了。智能电器包含的电子产品最终将过时，迫使人们购买新产品。
Ore Streams不过，不仅仅是历史课。该项目包含特定的建议 - 对政策制定者和公司以及设计师和工程师，他们“不了解他们为回收过程所产生的并发症，他们的工作都不了解。”
另一个视频完美地说明了这个问题：只是一个小时的电子废物回收商的头顶，试图拆卸iPhone，笔记本电脑和冰箱，并在整齐的网格中铺设组件。
Trimarchi and Farresin clearly believe designers have the power to make products that last longer and are easier to recycle. “Design too many times is interpreted as a styling tool,” they say. “If designers operate within certain frameworks, [it’s] not necessarily because of their own choices.”
In a final video, they describe specific design strategies based on their years of research. For instance, designers could establish a universal standards for items like screws, which would make it easier to repair and recycle products that use them. They also need to educate themselves on current recycling processes before putting anything out into the world. Take glass components, which are prone to shattering and which automated recycling systems have a hard time recognizing. Or concrete mixed with iron, which separators typically incorrectly categorize.
设计师不用使用胶水将产品制成产品，而是需要创建新的夹紧系统，使回收商更容易拆开。另一个明显的需求：一种通用的标签有毒电池的通用系统，以保护必须将其拆开的人。列表继续。
After two years of research into recycling and waste, will Formafantasma itself change as a design studio? “The way we see our studio evolving afterOre Streams创始人说：“在开发工作室的更激进部分，在没有任何开发基于产品的结果的压力的情况下进行基于研究的项目。”
每一个Ore Streams视频值得一看. By the end, it’ll be hard to look at your phone or laptop the same way.
formafantasma’s Ore Streams will be on view at the Triennale until September.