Tereza Staňková
(Architecture, UMPRUM)
Jáchym Šidlák
(Film Studies, Charles University)
Filip Vedra
(Intermedia, FaVU VUT)
The project follows the imperceptible flows and traces of electronic waste pollution. Departing from excessive waste production as an obvious feature of the present-day global civilization, it considers the political, rhetorical and aesthetic strategies of concealment that enable the continuous reproduction of status quo. Focusing on the case of Agbogbloshie, Ghana, the project challenges established notions of localized ecological hazards and puts them into context of economic and geopolitical relations and planetary biochemical flows.
Agbogbloshie has been infamously known as the site of one of the largest e-waste dumps and one of the most polluted places on Earth. The demolition of the dump in 2021 marked the beginning of systematic efforts to “clean up” and redevelop the area – a goal that entails not only a seeming dissolution of the waste itself but also a disruption of a specific socio-economic formation based on the collection, dismantling and redistribution of found objects. Seen from the point of view of material flows, the binary of globalized markets and localized externalities falls apart, and the political rhetoric of “development” gives way to a more nuanced political ecology of a place.
The title “Digital Drip” hints at the connection between digital media and water as medium in its own right: situated on what was formerly a wetland, Agbogbloshie's aquatic ecosystem makes up a communication network where harmless but also toxic chemical substances establish irreversible relationships between “natural” and “artificial” infrastructure, making the distinction between the two obsolete. As an “elemental medium”, water is a carrier of information about ecological dependencies but also political alliances and conflicts. As such, it inspires a type of geopolitics prioritizing the management of metabolic flows over ideological agenda.
Narrated in the form of notes from a fictional researcher’s hard drive, the audiovisual essay employs diagrams, 3D animations and digital distortions of archival or found footage and sound with the aim to subvert established representations of the site's story. It offers an alternative view exposing the complex entanglements between human and non-human actors involved in e-waste-related material processes across scales.
Format: video, 8 min 35 s
