Silas Babilonia

Death of the Desired Object: Waste and Value in the Post-Modern World

In the realm of Continental Philosophy, certain philosophers, such as Roland Barthes and

Jacques Derrida, view photography as inherently linked to death. What do we see in the

photographs of After Before that relates to this conceptualization? We see the death of value. We

see the death of the desired object and the attempt to revive what was lost. The words of Derrida

hold true for After Before: “Whether we are looking at the whole picture or just a detail, never do

any of these photographs fail to signify death. Each signifies a death without saying it.”1 In After

Before, we see the death of that which was once desired, now abandoned and lost as just another

waste product. As described by Roland Barthes, not even the photograph is safe: "The only way I

can transform the photograph is into refuse: either the drawer or the waste basket.”2 It seems that

many objects once valued are subjected to their own limited sense of death, resulting in the

becoming of waste. But what is it that causes such a process to occur?

We must ask ourselves: what exactly is waste? It is that which is discarded when it no

longer has apparent value. What the photography of JoAnn Verburg’s After Before shows us is

that we cannot escape from our waste, even if we attempt to hide from it. Most countries in our

modern globalized society have waste because we are all trained and encouraged to be wasteful.

We have been taught to consume to the detriment of our natural environments and the objects

forged therein. There is a question posed by Derrida: “But just who is death?”3 We are death; we

1
Jacques Derrida, Athens, Still Remains, translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (New York: Fordham
University Press, 2010), 2
2
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill &
Wang, 1981), 93.
3
Derrida, 6.
are the death of the object and its value to us. To overcome this death, we must question the

current subject/object value paradigm.

Our modern day estimation of the value of an object can be traced back to a concept

posed by philosopher Martin Heidegger, known as the concept of “standing-reserve,”4 where

“everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand… so that it may be on call.”5 With

the concept of “standing-reserve”, the entire world only holds as much value as it is capable of

giving to man in the form of resources, making the environment a means to an end. And,

according to Heidegger, “wherever ends are pursued and means are employed… instrumentality

reigns.”6 The view of instrumentality is that of considering the world solely as it can be used by

man for the consumption of man.

Through the lens of standing-reserve and instrumentality, when you desire a thing, you

don't want the thing-in-itself but the perceived value it will bring. The object of desire only

remains desired until the point in which it no longer holds the same perceived value. This value

is only retained until a threshold point is reached, in which the object that was once valued is

now viewed as disposable, a distinction made solely by the individual. The value fades in our

mind first before it affects the object. It is not valueless upon arrival; there comes a point when

the value is gone, that value judgement being established often before the object is even used,

made, or consumed, usually by the encouragement of the wasteful systems of a society. What

must be recognized is that the valued object can remain valued; there is not final expiration date

inherent within a material. Death of value, resulting in waste, is not necessary; even when a

material decays and rots, it does not have to be considered as “waste.” A thing can always be re-

4
Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), 322.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid., 313.
evaluated to serve a different purpose than was originally ascribed to its being as an

instrumentalized object of desire.

Waste is the byproduct of the “standing reserve” mentality. These foreign yet man-made

objects, such as the Coca-Cola or Jack Daniels bottles, show how our values corrupt our

environment. However, in Verburg’s own words, the exhibit is "an invitation, not a damning.”7

After Before is simply the artistic result of when "something valuable becomes abandoned.”8 It is

here that the heart of the exhibit lies: what gives something value and what takes it away? What

is the death of value that leads to waste? After Before is a thoughtful consideration of our habits

in modern day society and an understanding of value as it relates to the individual and society as

a whole. What After Before asks us to do is re-evaluate our relationship to the objects we own.

Instead of simply disposing of them, we should instead reconsider our own value structure and

how that impacts our view of the world.

In a way, the exhibit is a recycling, using photography as a means to create new meaning

and purpose for that which no longer serves a function in society. Making use of our objects,

respecting them, and then re-using them in a new way will help solve the problems of waste as it

exists now. We must value recycling, and not simply let our objects die to us and waste away. In

this, we must not simply recycle but re-integrate, the latter being an ideological shift. We must

not simply change our use but change our consideration of the object, as there is more than one

potential use for “waste”. Value must be considered not simply as a physical distinction but as

something beyond what the object has to offer in relationship to us. We must expand our vision;

sustainability, through conscious interaction with objects, must become the new guiding light.

7
JoAnn Verburg, January 31st, 2017.
8
JoAnn Verburg, January 31st, 2017.