MARITÉ PRETI
Tire – Natural rubber from rubber tree or weeping tree
Synthetic Rubber – polyester cords – fabric – nylon cords – steel
wire – oil - pigments – inert materials… oxide, carbon black, sulfur
I was intrigued by the sociological aspects of where the materials for tires come from and the
process in which they are manufactured. I discovered some incongruities when starting to work
with and manipulate the found tires. The tire was constructed of several materials. There was
the black rubber which can be either natural (from the weeping tree) or synthetic. There were
wires, many steel wires that popped from the cylindrical sphere, some more oxidized than
others. There was fabric: very soft threads of cotton, nylon, and polyester. The discovery of
this unusual combination of materials made me think about the whole labor process and
mechanized industry necessary in making the tires. These artifacts involve in the concept of
transportation and how they were/are essential to 'carry the load' drew my attention.
Questions arose concerning what kind of load, which is the load?
Some of the loads that tires carried: our bodies, industrialized products, wounded people during
WWII, millions of tuna cans, and containers of tires. Globalization came to mind and again,
WWII. I thought of several different opinions concerning the mobility represented by tires.
There is the simple mobility of carrying us in the car, while we sit back and observe the
landscape, going over our to-do list, watching the urban landscape and rural landscape. The
concepts of globalization, freeways, tires, human and industrialized labor provided me the idea
of creating a map of the world connecting these ideas. The variety of materials united into the
creation of these objects, tires, are making things move fast. They create businesses and
accelerate processes that may not need to be accelerated. The bond of the materials that
produce the tire creates new relationships, interests and eras. To put it simply, the tires carries
an enormous load. They carry the load connecting one city with another, one person with
another and products
for people. They allow things to happen faster, in a good respect and in a bad one. Combining
the asphalt with the sand makes a rich texture representing the global map of our planet. These
are some of the components of the freeways where these tires are utilized and taken to their
maximum limits of power and speed. These are the freeways where we found the pieces of
tires, where they are carrying the load but yet erasing their existence in their passing speed until
they become shredded ruins of tires forgotten by the side of the road. The object, the pieces of
tires used in combination with the asphalt map of the freeways, connects all these concepts.
For me, this is beauty, this is critical, this is a deconstruction of the materials and construction of
a different view and awareness of our communications, resources, relationships worldwide and
throughout the centuries.
From natural rubber to synthetic rubber…from tribal to societal… When we went to film the
video, we took the freeway and drove for about 20 minutes until we reached a less crowded
portion of road. We stopped on the side of the road and collected some tires that we saw there.
We drove over to a more rural area and the landscape changed completely from the city to the
margins, not necessarily the poor margins, but in Houston, the more rural margins. We stopped
again and we collected several pieces this time. Small pieces, bigger pieces, pieces nearer to
the road, pieces almost forgotten and hidden in the grass, pieces with clumps of dead grass
attached. Our journey to pick up tires was a journey of mobility, of the visual beauty of the
rubber and of the landscape.