By John Sutter
I’d never read the term ‘upcycling’ before today, when I stumbled upon this news release about an upcoming art exhibition in Bartlesville that will explore consumer waste and our society’s impact on the environment.
Apparently the term refers to reusing something (which has its own buzzwords like “repurposing” and “recycling”) in a way to upgrades its value or usefulness. So, in this case, it’s taking a bunch of trashed cell phones and turning them into art.
The show is part of a “3-logy,” the news release says, so maybe this place is just way too into strange phrases. You be the judge about bringing “upcycle” into your vocab. There seems to be a whole new vocabulary coming into existence with the green/eco/e-generation movement. I wrote the word “sustainably” in a story yesterday and my editor said, “Is that a word. Spellcheck doesn’t pick it up.” Yet, you see that term tossed around all over the place in green media — so much so that it’s almost become trite, and lost its meaning, just like “green.”
Anyway, sorry for getting sidetracked. The exhibit, titled “Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things,” starts Aug. 22 at the Price Tower, which is a great Frank Lloyd Wright building in Bartlesville … that just happens to look really similar to the Classen Tower in Oklahoma City.
