The Aesthetic of Dirt

Only if we develop an eye to appreciate dirt around us, will we fall in love with our environment. To be able to discuss dirt further, one needs to set up a framework for the definition of dirt. What is dirt? What are the conceptions of dirt? How is dirt constructed? What is our cause for repulsion towards dirt? How is it possible for other living beings to be with, live in or even consume something that we may consider as dirt?

One could argue through Luis Bunuel's free form surrealist films The Phantom of Liberty (scene) investigations in such areas of perception. His surreal work on the dining table where people sit on commodes and laugh about what they consume brings a darker side of the way in which our system is codified. Speaking of 'Sexuality and Deject', Bataille says:

"...The place for filth is in the dark, where looks cannot reach it. Secrecy is the condition for sexual activity, just as it is the condition for the performance of the natural functions.

Darkness thus surrounds two worlds that are distinct but always associated. The same horror banishes the sexual function and excretion to the same darkness. The association is given in nature, which brings together and even in part mingles the organs. Of course we cannot determine the essential component of the aversion provoking the nausea we feel for both kinds of "filth." We cannot even know if excrement smells bad because of our disgust for it, or if its bad smell is what causes that disgust..."

However, beginning to describe dirt in order to be able to only appreciate my environment (since one man cannot clean the entire surround, neither can one convince all to behave civil and neither can one impart values or awareness towards health or hygeine), one may look at how is it formed and what are the natural aesthetic patterns it geneates. To follow a conventional framework, we could begin to analyse dirt through form, colour and material. After all, most works of art are primarily understood through these parameters.

Then, one must begin to understand culturally the nature of dirt a society produces. Because, the character of dirt that each society produces is a result of an engagement with the kind of material available to tem for all kinds of consumption - social, physical, technological, etc. Then again, the scale at which we discuss the notion of dirt is important. Are we talking of domestic dirt, commercial dirt, dirt at a locality or urban level, technological or machinic dirt - because 'dirt' takes on different meanings , infact different nomenclature at different scales. For example, organic dirt may be referred to as garbage, commercial dirt as waste, machinic dirt as junk, and so on. But then, one must find what lies at the heart of dirt - what common theme binds the definition of dirt? I think one can debate it from two sides - the personal and the public. But if one considers 'public' as the summation of the 'person' then there has to be some idea which ties or pins down the common understanding of dirt. There has to be something inherently repulsive about dirt for all societies to reject dirt. But these are really large questions and would only lead to theorising dirt.

In the meanwhile we must define a field of discussion. The idea of dirt in public realm is the area of concern. The fact that india is represented as a 'dirty' country is the reason for this investigation. But there is no need to look at a large geography like India since te conception of this land itself is problematic and one hasn't even explored the whole of this country to generalize ideas. Let us talk of our city. Something that is very close to us. More specifically, let us talk of the route which we take from homes to our workplaces. Can we consider dirt as a part of the aesthetic we encounter everyday?

(thought under construction)