Matter

The Anthropocene Project. An Encyclopedia

What’s the matter? Matter lies at the center of a great deal, as do its processes of transformation. What happens when an ox is slaughtered, placed on the spit or in the microwave, then arriving at our plates and making its way down our digestive tract? From the viewpoint of farmers, doctors, food speculators, consumers? When copper or coltan is mined, inserted into mobile phones or computers, and winds up on special trash dumps in the global South? What if we understood thinking as a process of metabolism, as vapors, in the smallest grains and particles, radio waves or radioactive, mixed up, complemented, decaying, radiating. Abstract biochemistry. Or more sensually, via the body, the skin, our breath. Environmental pollutants, the Internet, pollen, air conditioners, money . . . the lines separating humanity and material are increasingly blurring. Perhaps we only grasp that we ourselves are material when we engage with other materials.