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

SHIPBREAKING

Shipbreaking began as an accidental industry when an abandoned cargo ship washed up on Bangladeshi shores. The ship was stripped of its steel for quick profit, and a new found source of economy and resource initiated an urbanism reflective of a contemporary case of Patrick Geddes' theories of conurbation, megalopolis, and folk. Originally, these theories described the migration process of people from regional locals toward a larger metropolis, and in turn, these larger cities would thus begin to materialize in close proximity to one another, an image that Benton Mackaye would refer to as the creation of an "industrial wilderness." In the early twentieth century, when these terms were created, geographical location played a much larger role in the way that cities interacted, much more so compared to the present-day globalized world. The global metropolis no longer relies solely on its surrounding place but pulls from a global culture as workers move internationally, blending dialects and culture, and resources are drawn from unseen territories. In the case of the shipbreaking industry, imports consist of the breaking down of materials from another country's waste.

These further expansions of the metropolis outside of its physical limitation simultaneously create a network of migrating toxic substances, a network that we call bioconurbation. Heavy metals originating in the ship's paint, polychlorinated biphenyls in the insulation and cables, and asbestos in fire retardant substances migrate from the manufacturer, through various international routes, to finally settle in the ecosystem of the ships final resting place. The global megalopolis has the potential to effect foreign economies through trade tariffs, employment, or conglomeration just as easily as distant ecosystems are cross pollinated by heavy pollutants created in production. As ships in Bangladesh are beached during hide tide and stripped during low tide, the steel carcass, coated with toxic chemicals, is left exposed, only to leach contaminants into the ocean as high tide washes against the shores and mixes these chemicals into the local ecosystem. These chemicals are resultantly ingested by small marine life, such as plankton, and journey further up the food chain in a process called biomagnification, creating a network of chemicals between the ocean and marine life.

Our mapping theorizes this connection between locations of point-source toxic discharge from shipbreaking locations and their respective ecosystems, focusing on Chittagong, Bangladesh with the leading shipbreaking activity in the world. The mapping also displays a hybridized folk, caused by the cultural assimilation of migrant workers funneling from rural locations to populate the city of Chittagong in support of lucrative business practices that have been recognized as the source of Chittagong's parasitism.