[AkBild, Wien, AT 2018]
︎︎︎ Style & Aesthetics
︎︎︎ Anthropocene
︎︎︎ Materiality
︎︎︎ Sicily, Italy
What is a style? A trait which is both shared and a sign of distinction, which identifies and grasps the sign of its times. It has aesthetic, ethical and anthropological effects. It is repeatable practice, which lays down, stratifies and produces followers and variations on a theme. Plastiglomerates represent phenomena of such obstinacy and stubbornness that it is bound to contain signs and meaning of rare power and effectiveness. Over 60 years these forms have left profound traces on the land and on the very flesh of Sicily, shaping its environment and community. They have piled up, first on the surface, and then in the memory and the collective psyche and consciousness. Plastiglomerates have founded their own ethics and aesthetics, which we must fully come to terms with. Without trivialising them or taking the easy way out. Ethics and aesthetics: the columns underpinning any style.