MAN'S PART IN DECAY

There are several other aspects of decay which need to be discussed within this research such as:

THE PROLONGING OF DECAY:
In this modern society that we now live in we as humans are striving to make our lives longer by any means possible. Through drugs we hold back HIV, Cancer and many other forms of natural decay within us.

COSMETIC SURGERY:
We long to have our youthful looks and go to any lengths to keep them - again through drugs or the radical procedure of cosmetic/plastic surgery. This is to stave off the eventuality of wrinkled and sagging and ageing skin. We even have implants to give our bodies the definition of a very fit and healthy human at the ripe old age of 60/70?

HUMAN COST:
We as humans have a responsibility to earth and to our existence in what we produce and how it effects the natural balance - we have already seen in recent weeks the disasters we are capable of such as the well documented Oil spills in America and the not so publicised but just as catastrophic spill in China.

We litter the globe with our rubbish some of which takes hundreds of years to eventually break down naturally such as plastic bags and bottles which can take anything from 20 to 1,000 years scientists estimate. They also account for up to 50 percent of all the rubbish found in landfills.

An interesting fact: The United Kingdom goes through 10 billion bags a year. People surveyed say they use the plastic bags only once before disposing them. People also admitted to using roughly eight bags per week.

We in the UK are taking steps to tackle this problem:
Modbury, UK - BECAME THE FIRST PLASTIC FREE TOWN IN EUROPE IN 2007. No recycling, no taxing, just no plastic bags, period! Spurred on by Modbury native Rebecca Hoskins, a wildlife camerawoman, and a video she made documenting the horrors of plastic pollution on marine animals, the whole town agreed to stop providing or selling plastic bags and switch to environmentally friendly alternatives. (www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ h2g2 - Plastic Bags and the Environment, July 7, 2008).

Since we stopped burning our garbage landfill sites have become few and far between and we are quickly running out of land to dump our rubbish into.

I think I have rambled on enough about this subject but it has given me some direction about human interaction within decay and how we try to cheat the natural cycle of life and decay.

Every time I get onto this subject I seem to get rather animated and as such this is going to be the focus of my practical outcomes. I have already started to sketch out some of the designs I would like to attempt and I am eager to get started with them.

This becomes decay in our society just as much as the decay within nature...

I will post some visual work on this post shortly...