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introduction The
genesis of this project comes from the illustration Battle For
Blue by Michael Rock (Wired,
June 2003), who presents the logos of major corporations and
where they reside on the color spectrum, which he contends “color
as in real estate, it’s all about location.” Most
of the corporations in the illustration opt for a very narrow area
of blue. Which brings us to the question that started this
project, why did four corporations then pick green, who are they,
what do they do? We found that three of the four, International
Paper, Pemex, and British Petroleum, all focus on industries that
utilize natural resources that directly damage the environment.
Traditionally,
green as a color represents nature. This construct is re-enforced
on multiple levels in culture. Green is used to represent parks,
farmland, and undeveloped land on maps, it is politicized by environmentalists,
embraced by designers and engineers of earth-friendly creations
and idealized by artists. This is a notion that has grown in our
cultural psyche for many generations. Subsequent
research yielded a term that addresses this issue: greenwash-
disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present
an environmentally responsible public image (Tenth Edition of the
Concise Oxford English Dictionary). We thought that we could
stop there and dissect the newest evolution of corporate misdeeds.
If the truth were to be told, this project has taken us (Finishing
School, FS) to places that we were not prepared to go, into our
own lives and we found that we as consumers are just as responsible
for environmental damage. the new green explores the relationships between properties of the natural environment the faces of corporations and individuals today and the roles each play in the environment. The connections between corporate identity and the products manufactured by these corporations will be questioned and explored. We do acknowledge that some efforts have been made on the part of the corporation, albeit symbolic in most cases. Consumption patterns and the subsequent adverse effects will be exposed. Our planet is facing critical issues that need to be addressed. There are direct connections between the things we make, consume, and destroy. We do not believe the world will become extinct tomorrow but in the next few generations there will be significant damage, based clearly on the patterns already deeply entrenched in society today. FS proposes obtainable solutions on a personal and global scale. Our solutions, when employed on the personal level, actually yield global benefits. As an installation (delivery mechanism), this project embodies some public strategies presented by corporate greenwashers-information that is well guarded by the overt glittering generalities professing our greenness. |
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