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content/project/2025-04-15-master-thesis/index.md

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+title = "Master's Thesis"
+date = 2025-04-24
+authors = ["Aron Petau"]
+description = "Human - Waste: A thesis examining interactive workshops"
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = [
+  "archival practices",
+  "collaborative recycling",
+  "hacking",
+  "liminality",
+  "maker-education",
+  "Materialübung",
+  "matter",
+  "object-value",
+  "plastics-as-material",
+  "plastics-as-waste",
+  "peer-learning",
+  "re-valuation",
+  "recycling practices",
+  "scavenger-gaze",
+  "skillsharing in workshops",
+  "thesis",
+  "transmattering",
+  "technische universität berlin",
+  "university",
+  "university of the arts berlin"
+]
+
+[extra]
+banner =  "puzzle.jpeg"
+show_copyright = true
+show_shares = true
+featured = true
+
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+## Master's Thesis: Human - Waste
+
+Plastics offer significant material benefits, such as durability and versatility, yet their
+widespread use has led to severe environmental pollution and waste management
+challenges. This thesis develops alternative concepts for collaborative participation in
+recycling processes by examining existing waste management systems. Exploring the
+historical and material context of plastics, it investigates the role of making and hacking as
+transformative practices in waste revaluation. Drawing on theories from Discard Studies,
+Material Ecocriticism, and Valuation Studies, it applies methods to examine human-waste
+relationships and the shifting perception of objects between value and non-value. Practical
+investigations, including workshop-based experiments with polymer identification and
+machine-based interventions, provide hands-on insights into the material properties of
+discarded plastics. These experiments reveal their epistemic potential, leading to the
+introduction of novel archiving practices and knowledge structures that form an integrated
+methodology for artistic research and practice. Inspired by the Materialstudien of the
+Bauhaus Vorkurs, the workshop not only explores material engagement but also offers new
+insights for educational science, advocating for peer-learning scenarios. Through these
+approaches, this research fosters a socially transformative relationship with waste,
+emphasizing participation, design, and speculative material reuse. Findings are evaluated
+through participant feedback and workshop outcomes, contributing to a broader discussion
+on waste as both a challenge and an opportunity for sustainable futures and a material
+reality of the human experience.
+
+<embed
+  src="/documents/Human_Waste_MA_Aron_Petau.pdf"
+  type="application/pdf"
+  style="width: 100%; height: 80vh; margin: 0 auto; display: block; border: 1px solid #ccc;"
+   />
+
+<div class="buttons centered">
+  <a class="big colored external"
+  href="https://pinry.petau.net">See the image archive yourself</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="buttons centered">
+  <a class="big colored external"
+  href="https://archive.petau.net/#/graph">See the archive graph yourself</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="buttons centered">
+  <a class="big colored external"
+  href="https://forgejo.petau.net/aron/machine_archivist.git">Find the complete Repo on Forgejo</a>
+</div>