Checking yourself in the mirror is something we all do several times a day. We trust mirrors to give us an accurate reflection. They tell us if there’s spinach in our teeth, or if our shirts look bad with our shoes. Mirrors are also made to flatter and distort, with convex shapes to make us look taller and thinner or tints to reflect warm tones and give our skin a healthy rosy hue. It took humanity thousands of years to go from catching a glimpse of themselves in a bowl of water to that first perfect mirror, but we’ve been playing with our reflection ever since.
Body Sculptures by Hans Breder, Found at I'M Revolting
Light Bulbs
Picture your favorite place to sit. It is likely next to a sun-filled window or in a cozy spot next to a lamp. Think about the lamps in your living room or the antique glow of a city café. Now think about places that are unpleasant: Safeway, hospital waiting rooms, the DMV. The reason we like the sun, candlelight, and fireplaces is the same reason we like incandescent lighting. The reason we feel uneasy with institutional lighting is the same reason we resist putting compact fluorescent lights in our bedrooms and living rooms. We’ve all been inundated with “proof” that incandescent bulbs are bad for the earth, and that switching is so worth the energy and cost savings that our love of incandescence is just nostalgia-laden selfishness. But never is it that simple.
Chicken Processing Plant, China, 2005, image by Edward Burtynsky
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