THE AGE OF TRASH

The Brazilian TV series 3% is a wonderful science fiction transposition of the logic of the Wasteocene. In the not too distant future, Brazilian society appears divided between a poor and devastated “hinterland” and a utopian and almost heavenly island, called the “off-shore” in the series. Technology is the main dividing factor between the two worlds: while the offshore is full of all kinds of futuristic gadgets, the hinterland has the appearance of a giant favela, where people survive on leftovers. 3% represents the contrast between clean and modern on the one hand and dirty and obsolete on the other. If the guiding principle of offshore is science, DIY seems to be the most important knowledge inland: being able to reuse / reinvent what has been discarded is a crucial skill for those forced to live in a landfill. social and material. So far, the series is not too different from other post-apocalyptic tales; perhaps it is only more explicit in its representation of socio-ecological relationships based on waste. 3% becomes more unique and interesting when explaining the procedures that select those who can move to the island. Using science fiction to describe the neoliberal creed of competition and meritocracy, the authors imagine that every year all citizens who turn 20 can participate in a complex and manipulative series of tests, “the Process”, through which some will be selected. and moved offshore. From the perspective of the Wasteocene, the Process is a key device, because it creatively illustrates, albeit quite realistic, the internalization of wasting relationships that reproduce waste people and places. In this sci-fi dystopia, there is even a sort of religious cult of the Process, which makes all individuals in the hinterland completely “governed” and obedient to the logic of injustice that separates those who deserve more from those who are discarded. At the beginning of the third season, Michele, one of the leaders of the rebellion against the system, openly declares that for the rich who live offshore the rest of the population is simply waste. Violent repression is a key tool in 3% as it is in the Wasteocene: people do not easily accept being treated as waste and forced to live in socio-ecological landfills. Nonetheless, epistemic and cultural repression is also an important tool to keep the system running. In this sense, the idea of ​​the Process is extremely powerful, because it involves all the arsenal of neoliberal lies about deserving “a better life” thanks to one’s skills and hard work. As Bauman (2008, p. 158) argued, this discourse of merit assumes that those living in the global socio-ecological dump are victims not of injustice but of their own inability to build a better life. The Wasteocene is not so much about the rubble of the hinterland, to follow 3%, but rather the extent to which the rubble is the by-product of unjust socio-ecological relations but normalized by an almost religious celebration. At some point in the series, it becomes clear that the devastation of the hinterland is the direct consequence of the prosperity of the offshore. After all, every paradise needs a hell so much that its own is created.

THE EFFEC OF ART IN THE BRAIN

There are artists who paint what they see, others who paint what they remember or what they imagine. Our brain changes in the face of reality but, at the same time, it is capable of changing it: a "different" brain must therefore have a different relationship with reality.
In art this "process" can lead to the creation of new realities, which will only partly depend on "sensorial information"; our brain, in fact, does not necessarily need the continuous "information flow" coming from our senses. Dreams, memories that "revive" in mental images and also representations "simply" created by our mind testify to this event.
In this sense, art amplifies reality, creates a new "mental channel" capable of opening up to new experiences. The visual stimuli, real or evoked by memory, which excite the nervous system of the artist at the moment of the creation of the work of art, transformed by his hand into colors and shapes, will stimulate the nervous system of the observer. The work of art must be able to arouse in the observer's brain sensations and emotions that were present in the artist's brain. Approaching a work of art, looking at it, perceiving it, understanding it and appreciating it, implies the involvement of many brain structures and the activation of very specific mechanisms, starting from the functioning at the basis of visual perception, to those involved in the so-called "psychology of see ", in the aesthetic and emotional experience. This refers not only to the emotion felt by those who enjoy a painting but also to the creative moment that involves the artist to create his work.
Some researchers, especially psychologists and neurophysiologists, have been fascinated by the possibility of studying the properties and characteristics of the brain that are part of the evaluation of a work of art and the pleasure it can give; persuaded by the idea that the understanding of these cerebral mechanisms, together with the knowledge of the events of the life of an artist and of the culture of his time, can favor a greater "knowledge" and appreciation of the work and of those who created it.
A work of art is born from the combination of what the artist experiences "visually" and how he interprets what is communicated to him from the outside world. Both the acquisition of visual information and its internal processing can be altered by pathological causes.
The effects of serious mental illnesses, often altering the artist's perceptive and emotional abilities, can affect his pictorial expression and testify how the painter's life story becomes an integral part of his work.
All this emerges in the paintings of some great painters in particular moments of their life.

RUNAWAY

In short, rich or poor, sooner or later you will be plagued by this uselessness of time. You will be bored by your work, by friends, by husbands, wives, or lovers, by the view from the window of your home, from the furniture or upholstery of your room, from your thoughts, from yourself. Consequently, you will be looking for escape routes. Aside from the tools of self-gratification mentioned above, perhaps you will begin to change jobs, residences, friendships, country, climate; perhaps you will indulge in sexual promiscuity, alcohol, travel, cooking lessons, drugs, psychoanalysis. In fact, you could put all these things together; and for a while the combination could work. Until, of course, you wake up in your room with a new family and a different wallpaper, in another state, in another climate, with a lot of bills to pay to your travel agent or psychoanalyst, yet with the same prohibits the sensation of the daylight that spreads to the window. And you will put on your slippers only to find that those are not the most suitable footwear to escape from what you recognize as familiar. And depending on your temperament or age, you will panic or resign yourself to familiarity with that feeling, or, once more, you will go through the process of change.