July 23rd, 2009 / 10:11 pm
Uncategorized
Significant Objects
Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Rebecca Wolff
THE IDEA
A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!
This sounds interesting.
It was created by Joshua Glenn, a cultural semiotics analyst and independent scholar. Click here for the “About” page & here for the list of items.
what is an independent scholar?
reply
July 24th, 2009 / 7:56 amChristopher Higgs—
An independent scholar is someone who conducts scholarly research/produces scholarly work/participates in scholarly endeavors, but isn’t affiliated with a university.
reply
I am going to a conference on objects in September. This will be interesting to talk about. I’m not sure what they mean when they say it will change from having subjective to objective value. I think I know what they mean but it seems a bit skee-wif. I think that is perhaps what they were intending.
I am reading this book just now: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6JqTcziwKTYC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=the+commoditization+of+things+igor&source=bl&ots=Xj566lLSt4&sig=iP9ynPSOQEYQ5prJ0nkJ1BqPs1E&hl=en&ei=xLNpSrSmMMahjAfszIm4Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 (sorry for the big link I don’t have access to bit.ly right now)
Igor Kopytoff is talking about the biography of things, borrowing methods from anthropology to consider objects and commodities. How an art object’s biography affects its cultural value.
This project is changing the parenthood of these objects? Or maybe they’re just adopting them.
reply
[...] here.) SmithMag shout-out here. Daily Candy shout-out here. HTMLGIANT’s thoughts here. Tastes Better With Sprinkles weighs in here. (Did we miss your take? Let us know in the comments.) [...]