Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

Effluvium

Every set of processes has a number of outcomes, which are necessary for the production of a desired outcome. These by-products are often considered waste or excess and rarely hold any quality or status when taken from their context and examined on their own. Often these by-products become obsolete once the desired goal is reached and can sometimes find another possible function, although originally unintended for this use, but sometimes the derivative is harmful or offensive and poses a new threat to people and their environment. This raises the question of disposability versus usage of waste. The integral house utilized human waste as fertilizer, maintaining a closed-circuit system within the microenvironment of the house.1 This sustainability strategy however is impossible for the Conshelf expeditions when waste had to be removed from the environment daily to avoid contamination. Human processes and the ways2 in which they are handled are highly dependent upon the environment and its suitability or resiliency, and needs. The integral house was able to find an active role for human waste, which would no longer be considered waste, but more like a resource.3 The Conshelf expeditions however failed to find a role for waste as fuel or fertilizer and therefore it remained a harmful byproduct with no value to the humans aboard.

1. Farallones Institute, The Integral Urban House (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1979), pp.1-41.
2. Jacques Cousteau, The Ocean World (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1979), pp. 256-267.
3. Luc Fellot, Luc, “Precontinent III: Comment Vivre 2 Semaines sous 12kg de Pression” in Science et Vie., Nov (1965), pp. 58-65. [*This article is in French; it is included only for the image references].