Just outside Havana, in the childhood bedroom of illustrator Edel Rodriguez, a washing machine engine welded to a boat propeller has become a makeshift fan. This kind of cobbled-together contraption is common in Cuba. So are stoves that run on diesel from trucks, satellite dishes made of garbage can lids and lunch trays, and taxi signs consisting of old fuel canisters. Cubans are masters of invention. They have to be. In 1960, President Dwight D.
  • cerement@slrpnk.net
    8·
    1 year ago

    one paragraph that stood out

    Oroza, who has spent decades collecting, studying and writing about these objects, has a name for the phenomenon: “technological disobedience.” Cubans, he said, weren’t deterred by complexity or scale, and they learned to disrespect the “authority” of objects. That meant rethinking their original purpose and life cycle.

    within this disposable economy, we desperately need to (re)learn to “disrespect the authority of objects”