When I think about recycling, I tend to think about the side that I see. I don’t actually see the entire process of recycling, I just know that I put my plastics, cans, and paper in the correct bins they get picked up and taken away by waste management. I am glad we watched Manufactured Landscapes because I had no idea that so much of our “e-waste” ends right back up where it was manufactured: China; it only seems fitting. Seeing the blocks of waste stacked up reminded me of the Disney film WALL-E. I really liked how the film transitioned from scene to scene, especially from the hot iron factory to the landfill and back to the factory; I may incorporate a similar technique in my future projects.
Anyway, I would like to switch gears and think about recycling in a different sense. I thought back to what Aaron R. said in our class (at least I think it was him) about recycling ideas or themes and I began to think about recycling one of my ideas. I wanted to revisit the spiders at my house because I enjoyed taking the first round of pictures. Additionally, I am a person who loves nature, but also loves technology; I saw this as a chance to put them together.
In terms of recycling, I have noticed that the spiders that hang out by my front door re-use parts of their old webs; at least that is what it looks like. They do not re-use their entire webs because see them spin new webs each night, but the spots where they attach their silk threads remains the same for the most part. I have literally walked into what I thought was a single piece of thread, but when I followed it to the base it was more like 8 pieces of silk wound up together. I didn’t even break the thread after running into it; it was so strong that I could pluck it like a guitar string and it would not break (needless to say the spider was already gone before I started to play). So without further ado, check out more spider pictures from my personal nature reserve (A.K.A. my house). I have also added a few of my favorite “non-spider” pictures that I took over the last two weeks. Enjoy.
Sebastian Maselli 