Electronic Collages

These are collages of recycled electronic material. They represent an aesthetic communication network, a true hidden infrastructure made visible. The raw materials are hidden within the everyday items we use – TVs, computers, cell phones, radios, CD and DVD players, clocks, etc. They are both miniature representations of the urban and technological centers that produced them, and a reminder that we need an effective infrastructure for disposal of e-waste. 

Cleve Overton grew up on Staten Island, next to one of the nation’s largest landfills. In DC, he found a warehouse full of electronic waste awaiting disposal, from equipment designed to educate, entertain, protect, transport or otherwise facilitate our busy lives. Much of it ended up in toxic waste dumps in developing countries.  Cleve’s collages were his way of recycling a minuscule percentage of the waste in an appealing and safe way while highlighting the disposal issue for e-waste.