DROSS 501

Dross LYDIA KALLIPOLITI Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The word d r o s s refers to matter that is foreign, the material ramifications of unprecedented tech- worn out and impure; it is a phantom material nological evolutions in communications that have condition, that is unnoticeable to such an extent irreversibly shifted our production and consump- that it almost does not exist in our perception. tion modes during the past two decades [figure Dross is worthless; it is an incidental, displaced 2]. The technological evolutions in computer soft- material [figure 1], a by-product of chemical reac- ware and hardware that have been producing novel tions that serves no purpose. Nevertheless, when tools have been in parallel producing immense it appears, a necessity is created for its removal. quantities of ‘techno-junk’, tons of purposeless and In time and through the use and misuse of lan- indestructible matter, almost impossible to dispose guage, the word has ended up in signifying waste, of. The past decade though, concerns related to impurity1 or any incongruous accumulation of dis- waste streams have slightly shifted in their orien- parate elements, pieces and material fragments. tation. Waste is no longer an issue that relates However the etymological origin2 of the word re- solely to quantity. It now also relates to the intri- fers to a residual substance that emerges in tran- cacy of the waste matter and its material compo- sitional material stages, such as the process of sition. With the advent of highly advanced melting a metal or the process of sedimentation of manufacturing methods and processes, many prod- a liquid. ucts that are displaced from their original roles and reach quickly and unexpectedly the end of their The purpose of analyzing thoroughly the ingredi- useful lives, are highly complex in form and mate- ents and the properties of dross substance lies rial composition, containing in parallel high beneath the fascination of metamorphic materi- amounts of embodied energy [figure 3]. Electronic als. Dross may be an alchemical fiction and a phan- waste, known as e-waste, is the largest growing tom material condition, but at the same time it is industry of waste in a global scale. The rates of a product, or better stated a by-product, of social computer obsolescence are so extreme that “in the reality, paraphrasing Donna Haraway, who denotes year of 2005, one computer will become obsolete that “the boundary between science fiction and for every new one put on the market”4 [figure 4]. 3 social reality is an optical illusion” . The intrinsic Alongside the numbers, a personal computer “con- properties of dross substance are analyzed to serve tains over 1,000 different substances, many of as a medium for the comprehension of a cultural which are toxic, and creates serious pollution upon phenomenon of incidentally displaced matter that disposal”5. is automatically rendered meaningless and serves no purpose whatsoever. Based on the perception Side by side to the waste derivative from the elec- of material impurity, this paper will attempt to tronics industry, a mundane reality of big defunct encompass the generative potential of obsolete objects – building displaced parts- is overwhelm- objects and spaces, or in other words waste mate- ing the contemporary city. Techno-junk is an rial that is displaced culturally or functionally from emerging city-born condition; Defunct oil tanks, either its previous or its original identity. air-conditioning tubes, advertising billboards, con- tainers and other apparatuses articulate a new The cultural fabric for this paper revolves around urban language that violates the building enve- 502 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

lope or attaches itself to it as an outgrowth. If one achieved.”6 identifies in the city fabric, a stratum of buildings that can be easily mapped due to their longevity, By engaging a strategy of irony as a legitimate equivalently he could identify a stratum of me- method of approaching phenomena, Colin Rowe & chanical appendages that cannot easily be mapped Fred Koetter assert that there is no social or con- due to their ‘ephemerality’. The significantly dif- structed reality “that we have to accept in toto,”7 ferent lifetime of the two strata is the cause for an but a composite present realm consisted of frag- erosion of the outer building shell that cannot adapt ments. A discourse of collaging fragments is ironic, to the change, taking place in it or around it. The because it resists utopia. It recognizes a “loss” in unmappable urban condition of this “floating mat- objects, buildings or urban domains that have mis- ter” in the city has been yet unexplored by con- placed their previous fixed identity and encom- temporary architecture. The necessity of such a passes this condition as a generative potential. The discourse is not only driven by the formulation of significance of this citation, resides in its unique an ecological awareness, but also by the need to interpretation of meaning. Here, meaning is not manipulate this kind of raw material. Potentially, it an inscribed, static quality, embedded in objects. could lead to an alternate practice of recycling, Conversely, it is a tacit, malleable status perpetu- based on questions of matter, rather than on ques- ally redefined, as the object is appropriated and tions of representation. reused, as it undergoes a metamorphosis. In this sense, the tactics of reuse is not solely an envi- The question arising is to what extent this phe- ronmental strategy directed to the utopian idea of nomenon affects architectural design and in what the world’s salvation. When dealing with meaning, manner. Obsolete and ‘nondisposable matter’ is reuse “fuels a reality of change, motion, action.”8 influential in diverse scales of reference such as the scale of an object –defunct computers-, this of Then, the argument of reuse is not bonded merely a room –oil tanks, air conditioning tubes, contain- to ethical and practical concerns. It is about ma- ers etc.- and that of a building –partially aban- nipulating the material aspect of an unprecedented doned buildings, ‘brownfields’ etc. The content of flow in the urban fabric. Along the same lines of this paper engages ‘obsolete matter’ in various thought, the condition of flow and unremitting scales of reference, or ‘techno-excrements’ as an transformation is characterized by Kepes as a fun- emerging city-born condition, derivative of the ur- damental reorientation of the 20th century. He ban system’s internal erosion. explains that “the dominant matrix of nineteenth- century attitudes was the use of Marx’s term 01 >> RE-GENESIS OF DIVERSE MATTER _ ‘reification’; relationships were interpreted in terms A DESIGN POST-PRAXIS of things, objects or commodity values. Today a reversal of this attitude has begun to appear; there “… We think of Picasso’s bicycle seat (Bull’s is a steadily increasing movement in science and Head) of 1944: in art toward processes and systems that demate- rialize the object world and discredit physical pos- sessions. What scientists considered before as You remember that bull’s head I exhibited substance shaped into forms, and consequently recently? Out of handle bars and the bi- understood as tangible objects, is now recognized 9 cycle seat I made a bull’s head, which ev- as energies and their dynamic organization.” erybody recognized as a bull’s head. Thus Extenuating the strategy of appropriation, reuse a metamorphosis was completed; and now and transformation, dross praxis does not begin I would like to see another metamorpho- from scratch, but from the reality of an existing sis take place in the opposite direction. inoperative component; therefore, meaning is in- Suppose my bull’s head is thrown on the evitably shifted. It can no longer be located in the scrap heap. Perhaps some day a fellow will process of representing an abstract concept, but come along and say: ‘Why there’s some- in the act of manipulating matter and bonding new thing that would come in handy for the functions to objects that have lost their previous, handle bars of my bicycle…’ and so a double fixed identity. Instead of a genesis of meaning, metamorphosis would have been DROSS 503

there is a regeneration of meaning and identity. A former is a “loose-fill groundcover derived from dross_ post-praxis dwells conceptually in what one 100% recycled vulcanized rubber from whole pas- could consider as the counterpart of parthenogen- senger and/or truck tires… held in place due to the esis -the phenomenon of virgin birth. It emerges interlocking properties of rubber”12. The latter is a as a germinal creative drive, through the desire “solid surface material made by blending salvaged for transformation of existing information, concepts aluminum chips or other non-ferrous metal waste and physical entities; it engrafts a copiousness of with a silica fiber and pigments, bonded with a thought or “a transformative vision,”10 defying pure, polyester resin”13. virginal creations. If we assume that nothing emerges ‘out of zero’, a post-praxis aims to retain 02 >> HISTORIC SYNTHESIS _ COLLAGE AND MOLDING OPERATIONS the energy induced in creative systems and ex- ploiting the accumulative effect of knowledge and Material reuse is certainly not a new territory of materiality. exploration. Locally found materials in nature and materials recovered from deceased animals, such Leaping to the pragmatics of the domain of mate- as whale and mammoth bones14, were used di- rial reuse, new issues have emerged in the past rectly for shelter and weaponry in prehistoric times. two decades, yet unresolved to a great extent. The Up to the twentieth century, recycling was more of case of a bottle, which would be the consumer by- a technical exploitation of recourses or an inci- product of the 70s, and that of a personal desktop dence, rather than a cognitive strategy of material are largely dissimilar as waste streams. Despite reuse. The falls of empires often succeeded recy- the fact that objects belong in the same category cling of the materials of buildings; this act was of scale, the material composition of a computer bonded to the disconnection of buildings from their makes it recycling an excruciating and elusive task cultural and monumental significance that were of shredding and segregating into constituent com- consequently used as ‘quarries’. Alongside acts of ponents and materials before the actual recycling ‘quarrying’, in the construction of tombs in ancient process takes place. Consequently, there seems Rome, entire objects were reused, such as pots to be a necessity to use defunct circuitboards for and carafes, in a repetitive manner to form shells instance, as larger ready-made complexes or com- or vaults. A characteristic example is the “fourth ponents for entirely new uses. Such a practice is century Roman tomb on the Via Apia, which was supported in few cases through the production of dubbed ‘pigna terra’ in honor of its dome built of materials by recombinant methods and assemblies. clay pots… We are familiar with the dome of hol- Within this framework of thought, waste materials low jugs of the orthodox baptistry in Ravena which can be inserted within new materials, either as was begun in 400 BC and finished 50 years later” reinforcement or as ready-made components, 15. In the cases of these tombs, construction was yielding particular local behaviors relative to the instigated by an assembly line of ready-made com- performance of the new materials. In light of this ponents, which discloses ground for a different technique, the notion of ‘downcycling’ becomes perspective of material reuse, potentially not di- relevant to the next use and ceases to depend on rectly linked to technical parameters of recourse the ‘performative’ properties of the new material. extractions. Recombinant assemblies stipulate material cross- breeding as a strategy for ‘upcycling’. Along the With a massive time gap, the issue of reuse has lines of this argument Sheila Kennedy remarks how reemerged, monumentally appealing, as an off- “secondary and tertiary methods of post-industrial spring of rapidly advancing industrialized pro- production produce recombinant materials: mate- cesses. Mechanical reproduction was critically rials within materials… The most inexpensive press- questioned by artists and literary critics of the be- boards are made from the waste scraps of the ginning of the twentieth century, such as Walter rarest woods. These claddings products confound Benjamin and Fernard Leger. Marcel Dunchamp’s the representational hierarchies of front, back, declaration of the urinal as a work of art, emanci- exterior and interior, and are equally acceptable pated a syllogism that disconnected the reminis- 11 as substrates or finish materials.” Recycled ground cence an object was carrying along with it from its cover [figure 6] and Alkemi constitute such ex- materiality. The object could then be viewed as amples of ‘recombinant assembly’ materials. The ‘raw material’ utilized for further spatial deploy- 504 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

ments. In parallel, one of the main representa- ciples of collage and moulding, in opposition, one tives of the Dada movement, Kurt Schwitters, gath- can draw the following assumptions: If collage sig- ered material from the street and collaged it to nifies the change of context, then molding signi- make artifices in the interior of his apartment, in fies a material transfer; if collage’s scope is a syntax order to create the compelling work of the Hanover change, then molding’s scope is a substance ‘Merzbau’ in Germany [ figure 7]. Schwitters’ dec- change; if the intrinsic principle of collage is pros- laration was to build out of nothing –merz-, mean- thesis of parts, then the intrinsic principle in mold- ing out of displaced material that experiences a ing is fusion of parts; if collage is about loss of identity. The importance of Schwitters’ art- transformation, molding is about transmutation [ work extends to the techniques of deploying the figure 8 ]. material he collected. He did not simply put it to- gether in an additive manner. Instead, he created For decades now, collage has been dominating the a second smooth membrane that sealed the realm conduits of imagination; it has been applied in of collage. Eventually, the compositions of the pros- parallel as a prime conceptual tool in architectural thetic art became latent building material, where design, through the appropriation of obsolete points of local interest revealed through openings spaces and objects, their imbuing with new func- called ‘grottos’. tions and their addition to new contexts [ figure 9 ]. Sporadically though, alternate paradigms have Schwitters’ wrapping of his collected waste mate- emerged, through the use of obsolete matter as a rial depicts two fundamentally different principles mold or a matrix, or in other words a reproduction that constitute simultaneously bipolar and inher- device for new material. Molding becomes promi- ent drives in creative praxis. These principles are nent in such quests as an interrogative tool of spa- collage and molding, where the first denotes an tial production [ figure 10 ]. additive logic of juxtapositions and superimposi- tions and the latter denotes a procedural, evolving 03 >> METHODOLOGY FOR COMPOSITE REUSE logic of transfusion. The methodology engages with two vital strategic In many cases of reuse, disparate obsolete parts decisions or methods; composite graft and plastic were added either to different contexts or to other matter. obsolete components. This syllogism of bringing fragments together and interrogating their newly The first principle for composite grafting denotes formed relationships in new assemblages consti- the combination of actual obsolete with their tutes a prime artistic revolution for the twentieth molded by-products. Here, the term ‘by-product’ century. Collage embeds the notion of reuse in an does not connote obsolete objects of the utilitar- elemental sense. As a line of thought, it is founded ian waste stream; instead it adverts new ‘artifi- on the acknowledgment that meaning fluctuates cial’ objects that can be formed by using an and cannot be resolutely engrafted into the physi- obsolete component as a reproductive matrix, or cality of objects at a specific moment in time. In a mold. By using found objects as molds and cast- this sense, collage is a practice that “violates ‘prop- ing on them different materials than the ones they 16 erty’ in every sense; it is a kind of theft. Although were made of, the occurring by-products will re- molding also involves the appropriation of existing tain partially characteristics of the original object, objects and contexts, its case is vitally different. but will have different properties, creating assem- The obsolete matter is interrogated for its textural bly lines of materials with local behaviors and prop- and formal potential and successively used either erties according to the material synthesis of the as a matrix or as material that can be plastically by-products. Composite materials make a useful manipulated. Then the matrix is subjected to a analogy to the strategy of a composite graft; they process of many stages; a process that essentially are composed of elements that work together to feeds itself as molds and casts change roles in and produce material properties that are different to out without a definitive ending. As Beatriz Colomina the properties of those elements on their own. The points out, “casting is an interrogation of space: method for also touches on some of reuse’s most violently pulling evidence out of it, torturing it, deeply rooted conventions; such a convention is 17 forcing a confession.” By putting the two prin- the dogma that reuse should be structured as a DROSS 505

precise analogue of the way that natural systems The first selected site is part of the MIT main build- deal with their waste. By considering the produc- ing, the basement infinite corridor. This location tion of new components out of casting on found has become in time a pick-up point for obsolete objects, artificiality becomes part of the equation electronics, such as outmoded computers and for manipulating waste streams. machinery. The space has become a depositor for obsolete matter, acquiring a dross function. My The second principle of plastic matter refers to a intention in this experiment was to use some of condition of material indeterminacy, where mate- the discarded items, circuitboards in specific, to rial is malleable and deformed slightly from its origi- create a pocket device that accommodates within nal status, while retaining some of its primary it the obsolete matter and also registers its flux in characteristics. In reality this condition occurs in a and out of the corridor. The installation is conceived wide variety of thermoplastic polymers when heat as a second skin on the wall double, where stripes is applied to them and they reach a mesophase can open up, in order for materials to be placed where they are neither liquids nor solids. Heating within them [illustrations 9 - 13]. is a method that is considered distinct from any tools linked to the architectural design process; The second selected site is the generic condition however the effects of heating in materials such of a partition or a blind wall, an anomaly of the as thermoplastic polymers could be described as continuous building systems in urban environments physical conditions that immediately relate to digi- and at the same time a meager structural point of tal tools -currently available ‘deformers’ in 3d the city in the case of earthquakes. The intention modeling environments, such as twist, tapper, in this project was to create a device of obsolete spherify, bend etc. components that would be attached to the blind wall and have a twofold cause; the augmentation 04 >> EXPERIMENTATION _ 3 DROSS of the wall’s structural capacity and the provision PROJECTS of provide an earthquake registration device, or a In order to test my selected methodological op- seismograph structural appendage. Towards this erations, I have created a matrix [illustration 1] of cause, obsolete helmets were applied as capsule objects escalating in scale that can serve as a pool appendages, releasing adhesives when an earth- for design exploration. The items of this matrix quake would occur; in parallel, helmet by-prod- are a circuitboard, a helmet, a plastic container, a ucts were utilized to create a fabric, or a safety bikelid, a watertank, a partition wall and a build- net that would withhold any damages and register ing part. The selection did not entail a scientific the effect of the earthquake [illustrations 14 - 18]. methodology, however a number of parameters The third selected site is the Boston Fire Museum, were considered. Such parameters were the com- a historic landmark, which curiously operates only plexity in texture and form of the obsolete objects, two hours per week as a museum. Therefore, be- notable hindrances in their disposability, frequency neath the historically significant facade of the build- of finding the particular obsolete objects, material ing, lies a condition of programmatic dross. composition and other factors. In this paper, three Interestingly enough, there is a notable waste of the aforementioned objects –helmet, stream of watertanks in the same area of South circuitboard, watertank-, will run through differ- Boston. The intention in this project was to insert ent digital molding processes. Consequently, the an obsolete watertank within the width of the objects themselves along with their by-products building’s exterior wall adjacent to the urban void will be used in three design experiments, each in beside it. The implementation of the watertank was a different site and location. In this sense, the intended to create an additional space, allowing matrix plays the role of a generating device for peeks through the building and partial access to new material, new images and new concepts. Each the public. In other words, wrapped around the obsolete object delivers innumerable and variable space of the watertank emerges a miniaturized by-products that can either open the imagination museum that corresponds to the function and the through an apocalypse of the material plasticity in space of the interior. This space, while working each case, or they can be directly used in new parasitically to the building, creates a museum assemblages [illustrations 2 - 8]. within the museum for these times that the origi- 506 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

nal is in a dross state. More specifically the obso- metallic screws & components wrapped by human skin _ lete watertank itself is converted into a projection In Ellen Lupton (Ed.) Skin. Surface, Substance + Design space that displays electronically in its interior, in- (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), p.76, formation about the building and the history of fire 77. [illustrations 19 - 23]. Figure 8>> Morton Duplex Residence_Lo/Tek, New York 1998 _ In FIGURES & ILLUSTRATIONS Tolla Ada, Lignano Giuseppe & Nobel Philip, LOT/EK: Ur- ban Scan, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, Figure 0 >> in abstract 2002), p.99. Credits to the author Mutant & Silent Architecture_ Santiago Cirugeda Parejo, Figure 1 >> 2000 _ In Brayer Marie-Ange & Simonot Beatrice (Eds), Antony Gormley’s Coconut Lead Shell contaminated by Archilab’s Futurehouse: Radical Experiments in Living an incidental, undefined material that originated from Space, (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002), p.91. the lead’s interaction with the coconut _ In Heuman Jackie Figure 9 >> & Deighton Sandra, “Natural Selection. Antony Gormley” La Vega Community Center by Matias and Mateo Pinto in in Heuman Jackie (Ed), Material Matters. The Conversa- Caracas Venezuela _ In Verona Irina, “Urban Upgrading: tion of Modern Sculpture, (London: Tate Gallery Publish- A new Community Center in the Barrios of Caracas. Matias ing Ltd., 1999). and Mateo Pinto” in Praxis: Journal of Writing + Building Figure 2 >> 2003, No.5 (Cambridge, MA: Praxis Publications, 2003), Best Buy Advertisement _ In Wired Magazine; Step in to p.77. Liquid, August 2004, p.81. Lite-Gate Project by Lo/tek_ Hochberg Apartment, New Figure 3 >> York, 2001 _ In Tolla Ada, Lignano Giuseppe & Nobel Philip, LOT/EK: Urban Scan, (New York: Princeton Archi- Between Cinema and a Hard Place, viewers left back view tectural Press, 2002), p.68. of nine modified Panasonic 13-inch color monitors which attached circuitboards on pedestal. Bill Viola & Gary Hill Water Tower (1998) & Basement (2001) by Rachel Art work _ In Heuman Jackie (Ed), Material Matters. The Whiteread _ In Lisa Dennison, “A House is not a Home: Conversation of Modern Sculpture, (London: Tate Gal- The Sculpture of Rachel Whiteread” in Rachel Whiteread: lery Publishing Ltd., 1999), p.113. Transient Spaces (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim, 2001). Figure 4 >> Packaging Experiments by Specht Harpman_ In Harpman Amount of E-waste exported in Asia yearly _ In Puckett Specht, “Hypertexture”, Praxis: Journal of Writing + Build- Jim, Byster Leslie, Westervelt Sarah, Gutierrez Richard, ing 2003, No.5 (Cambridge, MA: Praxis Publications, Davis Sheila, Hussain Asma & Dutta Madhumitta, “Ex- 2003). porting Harm. The High-Tech Trashing of Asia”, Prepared by The Basel Action Network (BAN) & Silicon Valley Toxics Illustrations 1 – 23 >> All credits to the author Coalition (SVT SVTC), (February 25, 2002), http:// BIBLIOGRAPHY www.svtc.org/resource/pubs/pub_index.html Figure 5 >> >> Alfred Barr, Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art, (New York: Published for the Museum of Modern Art by Arno Press, Recycled Groundcover material _ Material without Bound- 1946). aries. Material ConneXion Catalogue, (New York – Milano: Material ConneXion Publication). >> Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http:// dictionary.cambridge.org/. Figure 6 >> >> Beatriz Colomina, “I Dreamt I Was a Wall” in Rachel Schwitters Hanover ‘Merzbau’ _ In Gamard-Burns Eliza- Whiteread: Transient Spaces (New York: The Solomon beth, Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbau: The Cathedral of Erotic R. Guggenheim, 2001). Misery, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000). >> Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women. Figure 7 >> The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991). Collage Image >> Detail of a Cathode Ray Tube_ Col- >> Sheila Kennedy & Christoph Grunenberg, KVA: Ma- lage Method _ In Heuman Jackie (Ed), Material Matters. terial Misuse (London: AA Publications, 2001). The Conversation of Modern Sculpture (London: Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd., 1999), p.114. >> Kepes Gyorgy, ‘Art and Ecological Consciousness” in Gyorgy Kepes (Ed.), Arts of the Environment (New York: Molding Image >> Chimera No.5 & No.8, by Anthony George Braziller, 1972). Aziz & Samuel Cucher _Moulding Method. Art work of >> Material without Boundaries. Material ConneXion DROSS 507

Catalogue, (New York – Milano: Material ConneXion Pub- ley Toxics Coalition (SVT SVTC), (February 25, 2002) in lication). http://www.svtc.org/resource/pubs/pub_index.html . >> Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.m- 5. Ibid. w.com/dictionary.htm . 6.Alfred Barr, Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art, (New York: >> Puckett Jim, Byster Leslie, Westervelt Sarah, Gutierrez Published for the Museum of Modern Art by Arno Press, Richard, Davis Sheila, Hussain Asma & Dutta Madhumitta, 1946), p.241. “Exporting Harm. The High-Tech Trashing of Asia”, Pre- 7. Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter, Collage City (Cambridge, pared by The Basel Action Network (BAN) & Silicon Val- Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1978), p.149. ley Toxics Coalition (SVT SVTC), (February 25, 2002) in http://www.svtc.org/resource/pubs/pub_index.html . 8. Ibid. >> Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter, Collage City (Cambridge, 9. Kepes Gyorgy, ‘Art and Ecological Consciousness” in Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1978). Gyorgy Kepes (Ed.), Arts of the Environment (New York: George Braziller, 1972), p.11. >> Forrest Wilson, “Building with the Byproducts 10. Sheila Kennedy’s remark about the creative process of Society”, AIA Journal, Vol.68, No.8, July 1979. in Christoph Grunenberg, “The Appeal of the Real”. Sheila NOTES Kennedy, Christoph Grunenberg, KVA: Material Misuse (London: AA Publications, 2001), p.63. 1. Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.m- 11. Sheila Kennedy & Christoph Grunenberg, KVA: Ma- w.com/dictionary.htm . terial Misuse (London: AA Publications, 2001), p.15. 2. The Etymology of the word ‘dross’ can be found in 12.Material without Boundaries. Material ConneXion Cata- Cambridge Dictionaries Online, http:// logue, (New York – Milano: Material ConneXion Publica- dictionary.cambridge.org/ . Middle English dros, is tion). derivative from Old English drOs DREGS 13. Ibid. >> dregs, grounds, settlings – [ sediment that has settled at the bottom of a liquid ] 14. Forrest Wilson, “Building with the Byproducts of So- >> [ a small amount of residue ]. ciety”, AIA Journal, Vol.68, No.8, July 1979, p.40. 3. Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The 15. Ibid. Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 16. Ibid. p.149. 17. Beatriz Colomina, “I Dreamt I Was a Wall” in Rachel 4. Puckett Jim, Byster Leslie, Westervelt Sarah, Gutierrez Whiteread: Transient Spaces (New York: The Solomon Richard, Davis Sheila, Hussain Asma & Dutta Madhumitta, R. Guggenheim, 2001), p.71. “Exporting Harm. The High-Tech Trashing of Asia”, Pre- pared by The Basel Action Network (BAN) & Silicon Val-