8 ARTICLE © 2017 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology doi:10.1162/ARTM_a_00187 In WWW (World Map), a photographed tableau from his series Pictures of Junk, Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz imagines how geopolitical inequities may be represented—perhaps even deter- mined—through material difference. In Muniz’s rendering of the world map, national boundaries are marked by distinct changes in topographic form, with politically and economically powerful nations towering over their less developed neighbors. To shape the varying contours of these countries, Muniz uses electronic waste scavenged from the dumpsters and favelas of Rio. His resulting waste-matter topographies are not lyrical flights of fancy but factu- ally based mappings of the geopolitical power differences between these regions. Muniz sculpts powerful nations using large, central components: oversized CPUs and boxy vintage monitors. Poorer nations are built from trivial stuff, electronic add-ons and peripheral componentry: fans, chips, keyboards, computer mice. Entire swaths of the Global South recede into flat patterns, while the world’s leading economic and mili- tary powers achieve imposing heights. Rocky peaks stretch across the entire United States. Russia is an elevated grid of modernist cubes. Yet all of Latin America is depressed: Brazil leveled into planes, Colombia a litter of huddled mice, Paraguay a scattering of microchips. Thus, Muniz seems to suggest that not only will nationality continue to VIK MUNIZ’S PICTURES OF GARBAGE AND THE AESTHETICS OF POVERTY CHRISTOPHER SCHMIDT ARTICLE