Exercise The story of an object
Time: 30 minutes
Description: By tuning into the qualities of everyday objects, familiarizing ourselves with their shape, form, density, and our relationship to it, we learn about its place, our relationship with it, and can look at different modes of engagement.
Instructions:
-Choose an object and first get familiar with the feeling of it
-then start to trace its history back in time
-where did you buy it?
-where was it made?
-where did those materials come from
-Make some guesses about the object: weight, what is it made out of, size
-Experiment in how well we can guess this information and what needs other tools to take measurements
→ Exercise: Turning to matter/material. Writing the implosion. We are surrounded by everyday technologies and tools that facilitate, shape, and sometimes even control our day to day lives. But what do we know about these objects around us, what they are made of, where they come from, who and what is involved in their production? Let this essay on Writing the implosion, inspired by a method used by Donna Haraway, guide you on moving closer to the objects/artifacts around you by writing down everything you know about them and mapping your knowledge (see also: maps and orientation devices) (reference: Learned about this text in Prof. Elaine Gan’s Feminist Technoscience class)
