Ian Bogost on understanding what it's like to be a thing. : Responses Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/secret-lives-of-things/35408/ en-us Design Observer Group 2012-08-15T10:11:15-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 <![CDATA[Responding to "Ian Bogost on understanding what it's like to be a thing. "]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/secret-lives-of-things/35408/#comments 2012-08-15T10:11:15-05:00 <![CDATA[Responding to "Ian Bogost on understanding what it's like to be a thing. "]]> Ian Bogost: On Harman’s The Quadruple Object



This is performance art.
]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/secret-lives-of-things/35408/#comments 2012-08-09T07:30:03-05:00 <![CDATA[Responding to "Ian Bogost on understanding what it's like to be a thing. "]]>



What if the “thing” in the mirror is you?

After reading your essay “Secret Lives of Things” and wrestling with the designer Ian Bogost’s book which deals with the metaphysics of Object-oriented ontology (OOO) I turned on the TV and saw a piece on 60 minutes about “face blindness” or prosopagnosia. Turns out Robert Krulwich (who you linked to here about the dodder vine) interviewed Chuck Close and Oliver Sacks about face blindness a year ago. In order to face a faceless world and the “alien” phenomenology of his own image, Chuck Close breaks the 3D image of himself, first into a flat object — a 2D photograph, which he can perceive and then abstracts the image into parts or “things” to create a photo real image.


“Looking is not seeing.”

In the interview Chuck Close also mentions the “wonder” of Robert Rauschenberg. In my own experience, I remembered how Rauschenberg dealt with this idea of “secret lives of things” and turned his kinetic sculptures into a kind of performance piece. In the 1980’s I met Rauschenberg at a small show he had at Cooper Union. As I walked into the gallery full of people and performance art, I noticed that Rauschenberg had set-up several slow moving kinetic sculptures in the room. Most of his audience did not notice that the small pedestal like sculptures were moving and people who were drinking would occasionally trip over the objects or bump into the kinetic sculptures. The next thing I knew, I was laughing with Rauschenberg at the absurdity of the moment. Several of us including Rauschenberg picked up Crayola crayons and traced the location of the slow moving sculptures on the floor.

Anyway I think this is a good example of OOO.
Thank you Rob.
]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/secret-lives-of-things/35408/#comments 2012-08-08T12:00:51-05:00