A Story of Plastics becoming Bio-plastics: Constructing Bioplastic-ness

Date

2022-02-16

Author

Tönük Kruıthof, Damla
Fisher, Tom

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

141
views

0
downloads

This paper revisits histories of plastics and presents the recent history of Bioplastics. From examples of the first industrially produced plastics, which had bio-origins, through to the crisis of the petrochemical plasticene, to a ‘fresh’ start in bioplastics, we follow oscillations in the valuation of materials and their significance that are closely tied to understandings of nature. Although the first industrially produced plastics, Cellophane and Celluloid, were bio-sourced it is only recently that plastics have become ‘bio’, following their condemnation as environmental hazards. We focus on the interface between materials and products to offer a material based social-history. In these tales of material development, certain aspects of bioplastics are made visible or invisible, they are recursively made in provisional and temporally specific material-product relationships, that emphasise and obscure various moral and ethical elements. We show this by discussing four example products to show different modes ofmaterial-product making that we name redefining, positioning-repositioning, and dispositioning. A 2012 waste bag made for the municipality of Milan mobilises ‘compostability’ to define bioplastic round new social and material relations. A coffee pod positions ‘compostability’ in a ‘issuefied’ material-product combination. A‘biobased’ bottle shifts the focus to the attachment of qualities to the source material, repositioning the object through the concerns that the material invokes. A salad bowl by Zuperzozial visually emphasises the ‘bio’ qualities of the material configuring a distinct identity and iconography for biobased-ness. Other applications of ‘bio’ plastic construct the material as invisible, ‘dispositioning’ them from a ‘bio’ identity.

URI

https://caa.confex.com/caa/2022/meetingapp.cgi/Home/0?clearcache=1
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/100167

Conference Name

110th CAA Annual Conference

Collections

Department of Industrial Design, Conference / Seminar

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

A comparative approach to national protectional law (1940-1956) Erdemir, Ömer; Akgün, Saadet Seçil; Department of History (2005) This thesis introduces a comparative history of National Protection Law of 1940 and 1956. It analyzes the two applications of the law, first, by the Republican People2s Party governments during World War II, and second, by the Democratic Party Government during the years between 1956 and 1960 in view of the general economic policies followed during both periods. It argues, in reference to the ideological struggle over Turkish economic development during the twentieth century, that the enactments and applica...
An analysis of the conservation of the twentieth century architectural heritage in Turkey : the case of Ankara Elmas, Nimet; Altan, Tomris Elvan; Department of History of Architecture (2005) This thesis examines the twentieth century architecture from the perspective of conservation. The criteria of conservation have changed as the idea of conserving a single monument has progressed into the acceptance of the need to conserve different cultural properties and the field has been enriched with new notions, such as the twentieth century architectural heritage. The main concern in this thesis is to present these current debates about and developments in the conservation of the twentieth century arc...
Introduction to "Sixty Years of Modern Tsunami Science, Volume 1: Lessons and Progress" Kanoğlu, Utku; Baptista, Maria Ana; Rabinovich, Alexander B. (2021-12-01) Twenty-three papers are included in this PAGEOPH topical issue "Sixty Years of Modern Tsunami Science, Volume I: Lessons and Progress". The papers are grouped into four categories: historical tsunami events, studies on tsunami source models and case studies, tsunami hydrodynamics, and probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment and forecasting. Papers that reflect the current state of tsunami science and research are briefly introduced.
An Analysis on McGinn’s Mysterianism: Reply to Erhan Demircioglu Işıkgil, Sena (2017-02-01) This paper discusses Erhan Demicioglu’s approach to McGinn’s mysterianism. Demircioglu argues that the reasons why McGinn considers his cognitive closure idea to be true with respect to the solution of the mind-brain problem are not compatible with his claim about the existence of a naturalist solution to the mind-brain problem. However, I consider such a criticism to be the result of missing some important details in McGinn’s thesis on cognitive closure. In this study by analysing McGinn’s mysterianism I s...
A POSTHUMANIST STUDY OF THE DYSTOPIAN NOVEL: MARGARET ATWOOD’S ORYX AND CRAKE, JEANETTE WINTERSON’S THE STONE GODS, DAVID MITCHELL’S CLOUD ATLAS Kasurka, Mahinur Gözde; Yıldız Bağçe, Hülya; Department of English Literature (2022-2) Demonstrating the adverse effects of modernity on life practices, the politics of life emerges as a significant issue in the twentieth century dystopia. The twentieth century dystopia focuses on autocratic regimes’ regulating life practices of the anthropos. With the advanced technology, rising trans-national corporations and ecological concerns, the contemporary dystopian novel shows a gradual transformation by revealing the fragility of the human in a similar manner with the othered figures of human-centr...

Citation Formats

D. Tönük Kruıthof and T. Fisher, “A Story of Plastics becoming Bio-plastics: Constructing Bioplastic-ness,” presented at the 110th CAA Annual Conference, Illinois, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 2022, Accessed: 00, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://caa.confex.com/caa/2022/meetingapp.cgi/Home/0?clearcache=1.