{"id":1230,"date":"2014-05-01T09:51:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T14:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2015-06-17T17:15:48","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T22:15:48","slug":"democracy-of-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/democracy-of-objects\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy of Objects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Object<\/a>

Object 80, Democracy of Objects Project, Naccarato, May 06, 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Ordinarily, upon hearing the word \u201cobject\u201d, the first thing we think is \u201csubject\u201d. Our second thought, perhaps, is that objects are fixed, stable and unchanging, and therefore to be contrasted with events and processes. The object, we are told, is that which is opposed to a subject, and the question of the relation between the subject and the object is a question of how the subject is to relate to or represent the object. The Democracy of Objects<\/a>,<\/strong> Levi R. Bryant<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

On one of my many ritual walks around the St. Henri hood (Sud-Ouest, Montreal), I’d come across an array of objects scattered along\u00a0the streets, alleyways or in someone’s backyard. Some of these objects were still intact and recognizable, while others were in the process of partial decay – still hinting as to their past purpose.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0there were still others\u00a0which had been\u00a0busted up so bad – removed\u00a0from their original material body\u00a0–\u00a0that their physical presence had become a sort of abstracted entity onto themselves. However, what all these objects seemed to\u00a0have common, was that\u00a0they\u00a0had\u00a0been either\u00a0rejected, lost, or\u00a0left behind – their purpose served?<\/p>\n

\"Object<\/a><\/p>\n

An important question began to materialize\u00a0for me during\u00a0these\u00a0ritual walks and encounters with said objects.\u00a0What is\u00a0the\u00a0relationship of these objects to myself, to society\u00a0and to the spaces they\u00a0inhibit now –\u00a0besides of course their obvious environmental impact?<\/p>\n

This line of\u00a0questioning also brought to mind\u00a0a realization that I had become involved\u00a0in some\u00a0sort of\u00a0anthropological and archaeological quest. But I wasn’t so concerned about the origins of these found objects,<\/em> as much as, their state of existence\u00a0in the\u00a0moment I encountered them.\u00a0To this end I decided\u00a0to document them (via my cell phone) as a sort of photographic impression\u00a0of their present state of\u00a0being.<\/p>\n

\"cropped-Object-File-01.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0project takes its title ‘Democracy of Objects,’ from\u00a0an\u00a0essay I had read a few weeks earlier\u00a0by\u00a0Levi R. Bryant, also entitled, ‘The Democracy of Objects<\/a>‘. However, the\u00a0choosing of the title also had to do with the\u00a0way these found objects<\/em> would seem to present themselves during\u00a0my walks. What at first appeared to be\u00a0a sort of archaic formation as to\u00a0their\u00a0displacement, began to postulate\u00a0a very different possibility in relationship to myself, and the spaces I\u00a0moved through on a daily basis. <\/span><\/p>\n

In his essay, Bryant points out an interesting point about our relationship to objects in that a\u00a0‘division between the world of nature and the world of the subject and culture’ occurs and that\u00a0‘the question of the object, of what substances\u00a0are<\/span>, is subtly transformed into the question of how and whether we\u00a0know<\/span>\u00a0objects’.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Object<\/a><\/p>\n

So I began to also ask myself: do I really know these objects? How and\u00a0why had I happened to come upon them? I\u00a0began to realize that the objects themselves had\u00a0no one system of prioritization.\u00a0Each\u00a0object wasn’t any more or less important than the other, except perhaps for the location in which they had been discarded\u00a0–\u00a0which in turn effected where and how I would\u00a0discover them. Another important question was\u00a0how\u00a0I chose to prioritize them in my own mind’s eye, that is, the process of choosing\u00a0which objects to document. I quickly realized the choices being made were\u00a0based on my own subjective experiences – the objects\u00a0color, form, state and use.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the\u00a0process of documenting the objects allowed\u00a0them\u00a0to\u00a0now exist and function on\u00a0three levels or referential points\u00a0–\u00a0past, present and future<\/em>. Their past<\/em> – their state upon discovery\u00a0– had left behind\u00a0some\u00a0material clues as to their identity. From\u00a0these clues, one could if they wished, trace their\u00a0initial\u00a0functional purpose; the materials and process that brought them into being, and their intended position\u00a0within a societal setting. Their\u00a0present<\/em>\u00a0relates to\u00a0their state\u00a0as a photographic impression, now\u00a0captured\u00a0in\u00a0time according to when I had encountered\u00a0and documented them. Their future<\/em>\u00a0however, was indeterminate, but\u00a0would now continue to unfold on two\u00a0fronts\u00a0– physically and virtually.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Physically, of course, the objects would continue to evolve\u00a0or\u00a0devolve – depending on how one choose to interpret the process.\u00a0There would definitely be a process of\u00a0physical\u00a0change over time to these objects in relationship\u00a0to their environment.<\/p>\n

\"Object<\/a><\/p>\n

The objects once documented\u00a0and\u00a0grouped together based on\u00a0the date they were discovered,\u00a0would in turn change\u00a0their original relationship and meaning to each other\u00a0and\u00a0myself. Once posted online, they relational meaning to each other\u00a0and\u00a0myself would change once again.<\/p>\n

Why post the objects onto social media sites? In a sense it is\u00a0a\u00a0continuation of that\u00a0initial question I had asked myself during my ritual walks:\u00a0What is\u00a0the\u00a0relationship of these objects to myself, to society\u00a0and to the spaces they\u00a0inhibit? This time however, they exist\u00a0within a virtual space, where\u00a0the process of discovery and choosing of specific objects occurs through\u00a0other\u00a0participants\u00a0online. As participants\u00a0come across and discover these now virtual-ized found objects<\/em>\u00a0within their own social virtual environments, they may\u00a0choose to interact with them. In a sense,\u00a0the objects now move to another plane of relational existence – one with\u00a0the participants.<\/p>\n

\"Object<\/a><\/p>\n

Overview <\/strong><\/a>of Objects Documented<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"fancy-horz\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interact with the Objects:<\/strong><\/p>\n

on\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0| Or upload your own\u00a0with\u00a0hashtag:\u00a0\u00a0#democracyofobjects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On one of my many ritual walks around the St. Henri hood (Sud-Ouest, Montreal), I\u2019d come across an array of objects scattered along the streets, alleyways or in someone\u2019s backyard. Some of these objects were still intact and recognizable, while others were in the process of partial decay \u2013 still hinting as to their past purpose.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[31,36,35,33,38,32,34,37],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy-of-objects-project","tag-archaeology","tag-collections","tag-democracy","tag-found","tag-found-objects","tag-investigation-lost","tag-object","tag-the-empirical-method"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Object-56-Democracy-of-Objects-Project-Naccarato-April-30-2014.jpg?fit=1952%2C1952&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Bp5m-jQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naccarato.org\/sthenri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}