The Visuality of Materials and the Materiality of Visuals

This chapter explores an abandoned industrial site—a jute mill— and its material decadence. It argues how an industrial ruin subverts several normative modes of movement, vision, and arrangement. It draws attention towards how things lose their ‘material sovereignty’ as they degenerate. It makes sense of how technological shifts and restructuration of capital lead to the abandonment of productive space. It also argues that the ruining materials that are endowed with visuality of decay and the visuals that convey the transient nature of deterioration overlap each other conceptually and physically. ‘Visuality of materials’ and ‘materiality of visuals’ intersect and interact to create a unique visual and material identity of ruins.