VIBRANT MATTER

Thing-power, the agency of inanimate objects

 Fifth week (Friday, 25 October, 2024)








To repurpose disarticulated artifacts to create new work with them 

This week we were supposed to go to a charity shop, or a skip and buy, or find a domestic object such as a piece of furniture. Also, we had to make a 1:1 'technical' drawing of the object.



In the class we were provided with a verb list written by Richard Serra. We were asked to read the verbs and choose one of them. In the workshop we had to take our object apart and remake it in relationship to a text by Jane Bennett with accompaniment by the verb we had chosen from  Richard Serra's Verb list.

My verbs were: to cut, to split, to remove, to knot, to fire, to collect.
















The Force of Things (the first chapter of Vibrant Matter)

Jane Bennett in the first chapter of her book highlights the active role of nonhuman materials in public life. Also, she points out that things do affects other bodies, enhancing or weakening their power. Bennett believes that all things are animate, albeit in different degrees, affecting and shaping spaces and calls this as Thing-power. She mentions that thing-power arises from bodies inorganic as well as organic. According to a story in her book items around us disclose themselves as dead stuff at one moment and live presence at the next time: junk, then claimant; inert matter, then live wire. 


Rhythmanalysis of our classroom

Last week, having read Rhythmanalysis by Lefebvre, we students mentioned and drew separately some rhythms present in the classroom, in this week we were supposed to redraw the same rhythms but this time in a way that they had been entangled.

classmate's coughing
heart beats
pulse rate
whispers out of our class
nationality
mindsets
electricity
body movement
smoking
thoughts
speaking
ideas
laughter...


Rhythmanalysis of St Mary Church

1. traffic sound
2. church bell
3. wind sound
4. people running
5. breads flying
6. dogs barking
7. grass and leaves movement
8. insects moving
9. leaves rustling
10. electricity
11. body movement
12. plants growing
13. clouds pattern
14. sun shining
15. diversity of lives...


Now that I have become familiar with notions like rhythm and thing-power, as an architecture student, I will try to care more about things around and listen to their inherent qualities so that my ideas become in harmony with them not be imposed to them.👌

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