Here’s something that I have been thinking about for a while but still got nothing in my mind.
“Truly sustainable mark-making”
Mark-making, as in, writing, drawing, printing etc. Much of human’s history is passed down through mark-making. Knowledge is being transfered through writing and printing. With digital media, many believe that digital paper is the more sustainable solution to traditional paper, but is it?
Traditional media such as pen/cil and paper uses natural resources to produce, and very often chemicals that do harm to the environment, and fuel to operate the whole manufacturing of the mediums.
Digital writing often requires hardware to begin with. Immediately, we are looking at computer chips/boards, plastics and all the things that come along with them. Plus, most digital gadgets become obsolete quickly.
So what is the truly sustainable mark-making? Not only does the resource need to be renewable, degradable(industrially or naturally), it needs to be just as good, or even better than what we have today. Will I still be able to write clearly with it? How long lasting will it be? Can it be archived? What about resolution?
I guess this is asking for too much, and I am not thinking along the line of “products” or “designs”. I guess I am more interested to see a systematic proposal that we can start manifesting into a more mature and adequate solution for tomorrow.