This week, a new exhibit called
"The Toaster Project" opens at the Royal College of Art in London, England. On
his website, artist Thomas Thwaites
explains the gist: "I'm trying to build a toaster, from scratch—beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that Argos sells for only £3.99." So Thwaites has been traveling around the world to acquire iron, nickel, copper, and oil from which he planned to make refined petroleum for the appliance's plastic moldings.
Thwaites may well end up making some approximation of a modern toaster, but he'll come nowhere near his stated goal of having made one on his own.
But as you might have guessed, the miracle of modern capitalism is lost on Thwaites and the
eco-arts websites celebrating his experiment. He sees his project as a
condemnation of trade, technology, and mutually beneficial exchange, not a celebration of it.
clipped from: reason.com