Reassembling Rubbish

The Rubbish Bin

The Rubbish Bin is a place for us to store and share ideas, concept notes, preliminary findings, musings, and compositions of many sorts. We have in mind Thompson's (1979) concept of rubbish which is not synonymous with trash, garbage, or waste as such. Instead, Thompson's (1979) notion of rubbish is a material-semiotic holding category into and out of which that which is placed in it may move on to become something else, perhaps something of value..

The Rubbish Bin acts like other rubbish bins we are familiar with in our daily lives - at home, at places of work, on the street. And like those familiar bins, The Rubbish Bin is a curious site of placing and - potentially at least - scavenging, gleaning, repurposing, refurbishing, and repairing what is found in it so that such findings may become something else - so long as a chain of attributions is extended. In other words, The Rubbish Bin is not a site of abandonment. Things in it are not free for the taking. The price is attribution. The principle is fair dealing.

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