number 9 (power supplies / computers)

Life is constant movement, and photography has the ability to capture this movement. Freezing time releases it from its constraints, and allows the viewer to engage with all the things that normally pass us by. Pasi Orrensalo’s series »Life behind the Waste« consists of several large-format photographs that capture the precise moment in which piles of waste found on scrapyards are thrown into the air. Photographing the items in motion as they fly across the sky gives the stories behind these objects the attention they deserve. 

The photograph exhibited as part of »Open Codes«, »number 9 (power supplies / computers)«, refers to a very particular type of waste, a reflection of our Digital Age: electronic waste, commonly known as e-waste. The image portrays hundreds of computers flying across the sky tangled in countless cables; it presents us with the physical components that make our digital worlds possible. At a time when computers, phones, and other digital devices are increasingly produced and rapidly thrown away, it is time to become aware of the effects this exponential increase is having on the environment and on our lives.