ABSTRACT
Transformed from its original inanimate objectness of the world’s waste into an animated thing, the Matacao enchants the whole narrative space in Through the Arc of the Rain Forest. Originating as piece of debris from a massive layer of plastic generated by the world’s waste, this small plastic ball becomes attached to a boy in Japan named Kazumasa Ishimaru, and the two go on to experience adventures in a magical tale of eco-apocalypse in the Amazon rain forest. The metamorphosis of human waste into a tremendous, impenetrable plastic field exerts a magnetic power on the characters and draws them to its mysterious center. The transformation of compressed garbage into an animated ball and then into a haunting memory demonstrates the choreographic mutability of the plastic narrator—a plastic remnant’s wondrous life or its curious thing-power. The eccentric thingness of the Matacao, its magical magnetism, proves the agential powers of the natural-cum-artifactual object.
