Synthesis and synthetics

Written by

in

Some types of synthesis and related movements/concepts:

  • Synthetism movement in art — post-Impressionist, synthesizing visual appearance, the artist’s feelings, and aesthetic purity (line/color/form)
  • Synthetic materials — materials artificially extruded to form fibers, then woven into textile
    • Artificial silk first debuted in 1889
    • Commercial process developed in 1894
    • Nylon first developed in 1935, became incredibly popular for women’s stockings
      • Stockings became a symbol of femininity, female sexuality, and fashion (a la Marilyn Monroe)
      • Shoppers swarmed the stores after wartime shortages; at one store in Pittsburgh in 1945, 40k women queued for 13k pairs of stockings and broke into fights (!)
    • Non-biodegradable, can take >200 years to decompose
    • Synthetic garments can release microplastic pollutants during washing
      • Goes into food
  • Synthesis in research — to analyze and combine the work of others to generate new knowledge

My working definition of synthesis: (breaking down and) recombining component parts into a whole

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *