Synthetica

A clumsy attempt to introduce ‘the world of plastic’ to the public.

“On this broad but synthetic continent of plastics, the countries march right out of the natural world – that wild area of firs and rubber plantations, upper left – into the illimitable world of the molecule.” [Text, upper right].

Designed by Orbo Plastic Novelties, Inc. and issued in the October 1940 issue of Fortune Magazine, this fantastical map tries, in vain, to link the known natural world with the often misunderstood realm of the artificial. Separated by the largely unexplored territory of Lignin, ‘countries’ with unpronounceable names and odd geographic features are indeed an entirely new figurative continent.

From American Plastic: A Cultural History, “The map of Synthetic firmly rooted plastic in the extractive materials culture of the past. The conceit of a map implied an odd denial of organic chemistry’s promise to free the human race from geographic accidents of scarcity and supply.” [Meilke, 66]