he Apple 11 ,

ment reads:
~ JI and con­
eas)'." (/lyce,
80, and was
skilIs to put

1hardl)' an)'

:e Wajcman PART VII

Object Lessons
 AlBO

1am 1 because my little dog knows me.

Gertrude Stein, 'Identity ' in Th e GeOaraphicaJ H ist01J ofA merica ,
or the ReJation of Hum an Nature to the Human Mind ( 1936:

Gert rude Stein's dynasty of standard poodles were identity carriersj conferring; iden­
tity with wagging acknowledgement and recognition : ca ninus era o sumo Stein was , serial
pooclle-ist: she replaced her first white standard poodl e, Basket, with a second white
446 Al BO

stand,ird, Basket 11, After the second dog's demise, she acquired a third, Basket lIt wagging
Stein, whose prose style famously relied on repetition, repeated the selection of her asks us : l
canin e others on the basis of their similarity in breed and conformation, Dog breed­ the rock
ers re!y on the technologies of genetic-engineering in order to repeat certain features, IdO!
eliminate others, and to insure the predictability and uniformity of a breed, Ifher "little of us wh
dog" \Vas always a poodle, Gertrude Stein knew who she was, pleasure
T he canine jamiliaris has long served as an identificatory vessel, a four-Iegged com­ and haJ'jr.
panioll embodying our projections of who we think we are, Dogs, too, may consti ­ torical ca
tute their identities in a canine model of the mirror phase, The canine "grin," in which companil
a dog ',; lips are pulled back, exposing its teeth, has only b een found in dogs that have The ComF
been raised with huma ns , As we gaze into those dog eyes looking back at us, we are Meet,) As
drawn into the full-tangle of counter-transference: What are they thinking? Who do cuit of fe
they think we are? But ifmy little dog is a robot, who am I? dollar pe
Fc r centuries, humans have been compelled to build simulacra that emulate human is a comJ
and an imal behavioL The li 3 t is long: from the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea to 2006, aft
the andent automata in China and Greece, to Descartes 's mid-17th-century compan­ hOllsehoh
ion female automaton; Jacques de Vaucanson's duck (1740) that would eat, quack, flap its Here
wings, and defecate; Swiss clockmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz's writing automaton (1772) from my'
who could write: 'cogito ergo sum' and 'we are andraids'; Thomas Edison's robotic female companic
talking dol! (1890); Philip K, Dick's Do Androids Dream r¿IElectric Sheep? written in 1968, ion canin
set in 1192, Automata have thus teetered on the brink of anthropomorphism or zoomor­ and-asl
phism , testing the definition of sentience, posing the question: "can machines think?" sive since
In 1999 the Sony Corporation launched AlBO, a four-legged, head-moving, tail­ watching
waggin:,;, mass-produced "robot designed for home entertainment purposes!' An "enter­ to human
tainmellt robot," AlBO is not a domestic helper robot: he was not designed to perform his AIBO
utility tasks like vacuuming the floor, mowing the lawn, or cleaning the pooL (AlBO the black
stands J'or an Artificial I ntelligence RoBOt, a na me that also sounds much like the stands in I
Japanes.c word for companion,1) AlBO is an object-3 lb of silicon and plastic - -that "sit," "goc
become,; 'animate' as it barks and wags in an audio-animatronic simulation of canin­ flashes hi~
ity, AlBO conveys a sense of dogness reduced to its component characteristics of head, "turn aro!
snout, tail, and Jour leas. With these reductive signifying elements, even a line drawing human co
or a cartoon can be convincingly canine. AlBO can walk (in a clunky quadrupedic gait) , Whal
can "see" (with the video cameras behind its eyes), can "hear" commands (with audio
sensors), and can "learn" from external stimuli from their owner, their environment,
or from other AlBOs. The first AlBOs carne equipped with 16 Mb of main memory,
a 64-bit processor, a thermometric touch sensor, a CCD color video camera equipped
"vith a p ittern recognition technology that allowed it to recognize shapes and colors, 2 1n Ja¡
knolV
LED ligltts in its eyes and tail for expressing emotion, a 90 -minute lithium ion battery
AIBe
and a ch- rging station, and an 8 Mb m emory stick, with changeable behavioral modules
Japan
to teach dancing tricks by inserting changeable 'modules' into the dog's belly,3 In a par­
relea ~
ticularly human fantas y akin to sex-prediction or gender selection in adoption, AlBO s 2 AIBC
were manufactured as gender-neutral, its gender to be determined by its owner. ture I
An (,bject is sentient if it appears to have intent or agency, AlBO doesn't decide tu res
his aender but he appears to m ake decisions, Perhaps the attraction of AlBO is that he and,
puts us h lmans in a liminal state where the simulacra seem real, as if the pleasure that imag'
AlBO confers is the acknowledgement of his dogness flickering alongside a disavovval of can a
his robotlc-ness, To encounter him (let's assign a gender) with his eyes flashing, his tail AIBC
 AlB O 44 7

1, Basket II I. wagging, as he sits in response to voice command, AIBO seems like a se ntient f)bject. 1le
~c tion of her asks us: how do we dra w the line between an object -thing an d a thinking-thing, between
Dog breed­ the rock and the hard place of sentience, where al! objects could indeed be thinking?
:ain features, I don't own an AIBO, or, to be more in ke eping with the ter minology use. I by thos e
. [f her "li ttle of us who consider animals as full partners in a dyad ic relationship, I have not had the
pleasure o fli ving with an AlBO as a r obotic companion. The difference betwt·en owning
legged com­ and having as a companion is foregrounded with A IBO, a companionate cyborg. (The rhe­
ma)' consti ­ tor ical campaign to shift the linguistic termi nolog)' away from pet owner sh ip to animal
in," in which companionshi p has been eloquentl y championed by Donna Harawa)' in h er recent work,
)gs that have Th e Companion Species Man!festo: Dogs, Pcople, and Si8nificant Otherness and WlJe n Spccies
It us , we ar e Meet.) As a m ass-marketed mass-manufac tu red obj ect, AIBO takes hi s pl ace n the cir­
ng ? Who do cuit of fetish objects in commodity culture , exemplary of th e petishism that 1he billion
dollar pet indu str y re lies upon-where even the sentient pet , the companionate other,
lulate human is a commod it)'-thin g, owned and coll ec ted . And yet, however al ive AlBO was, in
Id Galatea to 2006, after more than 150,000 of t he mass-marketed ATBOs had been releaóed to join
n )' compan­ hous ehold s and research labs, SONY 'd iscontinued ' AlB O : they pu t the dog t.) sleep.
uack, flap its H ere m y m ed itation on the relation between the robotic and the r eal is poisee!
1aton (1772) from m y own vantage of mourn ing the recent death of my be[oved carbon-baóed ca nine
)botic female companion. As much as I wou[d like ro have, t o k now, to live with a robo tic compan­
ten in 1968, ion cani ne, I could n 't manage to spend $3,000 on AIBO when he was on tll e market
I or zoomor­ and-as m y recent eBa)' searches have indicated- AIB O has on ly b ecom e more expen ­
think ?" sive since SONY took him off the producti on lineo In the "vake, I've be en ro:duced to
10ving, tail­ watching videos of AlBO s as the)' w alk, wag their tails, and cock their heads ir: response
." An "enter­ to human command. In one particula rl)' p oignant eBa)' video, an owner who is selling
I to perfor m his AlBO says : "1 love m)' AlBO but I don't play w ith h im ver)' much ." In the video,
1001. (A lBO the black plas tic -bod ied c)'b org-canine is addressed by an off- screen human voice as he
lCh like the stands in fro nt ofhi s pink ball , tu rning hi s head arou nd . The human voice co mm ands:
lastic -tha t "sit," "good boy," "stand up," "good boy," and "turn ar ound." AlBO coeks his head ,
)TI of ca n in ­ flashes his eyes, looks at the camera as if he understands. The human voice repeats:
tics of head, "turn around ." AlBO pauses. The human vo ice repeats: "turn around ." AIBe sits . Thc
ne drawing hum an cond udes: "1 think he thinks [ sa id sit down" .. . I think he thinks ...
Ipeclic gait) , What is he thin king? Perhaps like AlBO, 1 dream of the real dogo
(with audio
virOl1m ent,
.11 memory, Notes
-a equipped
md colors, 2 In Japanese aibo u means pal 01" buddy. Designed by Haji me Sora)'ama, a Japanese artist,
ion battery know n for his suggesti ve robotic fo r ms taken fro m "pin-up" art , the first generation of
-al modules AlBO s were released in two litters (ERS-ll0/ 111 ): inJu ne 1999, 5,000 AlBOs (3,000 fOI"
)-. J In a par­
Japan and 2,000 for the US mal"ket); in November 1999, 60,000 grey and black pups were
rcleased .
ion, AlBOs
2 AIBO's vision s)'stem was an experimental sys tem rel)'ing on a SIFT (sca le invuiant fea ­
ner.
ture tran sform) algorithm. The invariant features s)'stem pull s out the most di sti nctive fea­
'sn' t decide tures of an image and encodes information abo ut their location, orientation, _lfightness
) is that he and size in a small file. A database hold s descriptions of several hund red featun:s for each
easure that image, which a computer can search when it encounters an unfamil iar image. Th ~ software
isavowalof can accurately select a matching image even if on ly 10 percent or so of the feat UJ-es match.
ing, his tail AlBO could recogn ize his chargi ng station.
448 Al B O

3 AlBO evolv ed with sorne in telligent des ign o T he second genera tion of AlBO s in 2001­ BOUNC
2002 upp ed its core memor y to 32 Mb and int¡"oduced new colors: gold, red, blue, gre en ,
white (3 hu es) , champagne, latte, and pug brown. A thi rd generation (2003-2005) of A PER
white, black, ane! brown AlBO s had evolutionary soft'ware upgrad es that enabl ed AlBO to
tal k back and express vel"bal commu nicati on wi t h its owner using more than 1,000 word s
in English and to recognize approximately 30 Spanish vvords and phrases, including sientate
(sit down), "en aqui (come here), and buen perra (good dog) . T he AlBO MI ND 3 Upgrade
Kit the la:;t iterati on of Sony's r obot companion- int roduced two new capabilities : the
AL BO Net News Reader enabled AlBO to read news or weat her from the owner's selection
of RSS feed:; and th e AlBO Diary, which enabled Al BO to take pictures , add notes on its
daily acti vities, and uploadits diary entries dir ectl y to a blog site.

Anne Frie dbl!rg

Critic al Studies¡ Univer sity of Southern Cali forni a

o Obj eto
Story, stane , e1ie

se [sound cue 1 }

Chinela, Chinelc

Slide praj ectian I

SC: acid chilliliqUl

In 1962 the Ha
yet m ore durabl
Brazil. Inspired
flop s replaced th
berried bushes s
Kn own as alpar8
or barely nation<

SC: Flip-fiop walk

is int imately cor
leisurely feet.
H avaianas a
uity is the natur
IBOs in 2001 ­ BOUNCII\IG IN THE ST REETS :
d, blue, green,
'003-2005) of A PERFORMANCE REMIX
labled AlBO to
.n 1,000 words
cluding sientate
NO 3 Upg rad e
apahililies: the
. ner's selection
.dd notes 0 11 i ts

o Objeto

Story, stone, click, bounce, thwack ... FLIP- ¡=LOP!

se [sound cue l: Flipjlop overture

RubberDance Trance
Chinela, Chinelo ou Sandália?
The Coffee Dance (done while talkin8)

Slide projection of slippers

SC: acid chillilique redux
In 1962 the H avaianas division of Alpargatas S.A. was bom to cr eate an economic
yet more durable and comfortable alternative work shoe for the coffee pla ntations af
Brazil. Inspired by the zori (thonged , inflexible Japanese Samurai clog), r ubber flip­
f10ps replaced the first ca ffeinated shoe, the espadrille, which had reigned under the red
berried bushes since the early 1900s, arriving w ith either Spanish or Chinese workers.
Known as alpar8atas, the espadrille was considered a work shoe for the disenfranchiscd
or barely nationalized. Its mid-centur y replacement, the flip-flop,

SC: Flipjlop walk

is intimately connected to low wage labor and poor working conditions, even wom on
leisurely feet .
Havai anas are the original, indigenous flip-flop of Brazi!. The key to 1.heir ubiq­
uity is the natural rubber sol e and thong. These flip-flops do not wear out, do not pick
450 BO U NCING IN THE STREETS

up odor, 1 ut they do bounce. The 'shoe' of the poor out of the home and at work, the SC: Rubberl
'sandal' ol' the middle class at the beach , and the 'slipper' in the homes of the middle to
Schla, schl
upper clMS, Havaianas slipped into disuse in the 1980s when the market was flooded
adds up to
with cheap, rubberless Chinese knockoffs.
and strugE
Baian) slang, Chinela comes from t he Spanish word chinela which means slipper,
tered sIave
in its female form to indicate any backlcss shoe, but particularly flip -flops. Frequently
500 years (
Spanish words become slang in Portuguese du e to Spanish immigration to Bahia; but
racha bOllr
they are also remnants of various border wars fought by African-descended people on
This, '
behalf of :he planters' class. These wars were leveraged to eradicate both native and
got shoes.
Ah-ican populations; the former at the border, the latter in the city. 'Vagrants' were
SI aves
abducted right off the street and sent to fight. How was it determined if they were
ngabundos? By their shoes, or rather, lack thereof. Vagrant just m eant ex-slave with SC: Flip-jlo
nowhere to go and no means of getting there anyway.
Flipped
SC: acid chilliliqlle 60 sec 'Ohm

Ti re Treading (geswred in shaes) SC: Samba i

movie 1 The Aip-A<
the cash to
Hanging out

Shoul(
Drinking Dining Talking Reading Waiting

wouldgo t
high green
One v
they are ac
Traveling

Pullin
Driving Riding Crawling Walking

in a high r
pllrple
teeters on ,

Shopping
SC: sproing
Getting paid Paying up

A laboring
high pink
ones, bein¡
Every
Conversing

Calling Phoning Texting

SC: sproing
high white
from the s
avoiding hl
Working

to keep dal
Pulling Pushing Toting Mixing

black SC: Cuica

SC: Voodoo
Scrubbing Vending Cooking Cleaning
striped green

Hahitual movement shapes space into consciousness, objects into totems, people into
mechaniSJnS. A tracking, call it a neighborhood ... SC: hen M,
or a grand choreography of fluid s, social constructs, civic duties, building ordi­
nances an,l historical erasures.
More Bou[
Arrasta a p~
 BOUNCING IN THE STREE T S 451

at work, the SC: Rubberband Ajoxe

he middle to
Schla, schla, schla. Too many revelers, too much drink, too late an hour, no marshals
was flo oded
adds up to a lot of dancing in place. In situ. Cobblestone holding m em ories ol bare feet
and struggle. Piedade. Rubber-soled feet slap the same stone where drawn and quar­
~ans slipper,
tered slaves were dragged to church to leave their heads for others to pondu. Pietar.
. Frequently
500 years of brea king in. Still not broke. Pity. Resilient , boppy even in the refJ·ain. Bor ­
J Bahia; but
racha bouncing along to the samba reggae beat , ignoring the headless rebel gh(,sts.
:d people on
This, The City of Seven DoOl-s. Seven, seven, all go to heaven . AIJ gOd'f children
1 native and
got shoes.
rrants' were
)
SI aves couldn't wear shoes.
J they wer e
x-slave with sc: Flip-jlop wa lk
Flipped
(Oh migawd! Those are sooo cool!'

SC: Samba boina

The flip-Aop is a class m arker in Bahia. One wears it only to the beach, assumir g one has
the cash to r equest a beach hawker to watch one's personal belongings .
Should the fl ip -Aops, or chinelas, be th e primary or sole pair of shoes, then one
would go to the beach barefoot , rather than ri sk havi ng them stolen.
One wiJl see workers, from maids to gas vendors, wearing chinelas. Sometimes
they are actuall)' prov ided in company colors. Shorts and Aip-Aops.
Pulling a load of bricks, ca rrying a mound of laundry on the head, hoisting a beam
in a high ri se . Toes out, gripping, groping for the san ity in the gesture while the back
teeters on collapse.

SC: sproin8
A laboring foot in Aip-Aops echos, retraces the historical fact of slaves, evelJ wealth)'
ones, being forced to go barefoot .
Every so often , a vessel ruptures

SC: sproin8
from the sheer effort of keeping the foot Aipped to Aop. Under the ex trem e weight 01'
avoiding hunge r and homelessn ess, a well-muscled arch struggles to find the , ackbone
to keep dancing.
SC: Cuica
SC: Voodoo Bach
Theraba nd Dance
Tire Treading Return
people into
SC: Even More Bounce with Street
ilding ordi -
RubberPop Dance

More Bounce to the Ounce

452 80 JNCING IN TH E STREETS

The secret to Havaianas' success is in the vulcanization. 'Tops'

zilian Flags
sc: HiHop,~sHell Movin
Were it nc ,t for 70,000 hijacked seeds, the rubber of these famous flip-flops \-vould most mation. O
likely all come from Brazil. It might. Vertically integrated parent company Sao Paulo soundtrack
A l pargata~ S.A. did not disclose this in public non-investor materials. interaction
Collected from hevea brasiliensis one excruciating hack at a time, latex (the white Havaia
sticky fluie! that oozes from these trees between the bark and wood) was one of the pri­ Bv¡ hid
mary nineteenth-century Brazilian exports. In fact, the country dominated the global created thr
market until th e mid-1880s. is the pack;
Brazil's reign carne to an end in 1876 when one Henry Wickham r eturned to Eng­ tion ofped,
land to Spl"Out and study hevea brasiliensis in the Royal Botanical Garden. His success was
SC: Rubber I
shipped to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Thailand.
Brazilian tappers Jora8ed for latex, rushing against rainy seasons and tree-killing
fungus: hack tree, collect latex in cup, add ammonia to 'cup lump', smoke it right
I have ver)'
there, mal:e balls, hike to river, send balls down the Amazon to be vulcanized again into
them , )'ou'
sheets. Meanwhile Britain harvested their latex, sending it al! at once to a central smoke­
¡'ve been te
house on the plantation. Greal 8 ritain soon wrested the rubber market from the Brazil­
ian goverr ment, ironically at about the sa me time that Brazil finally abolished slavery, SC: Long wa
in 1888. 10 add insult to injury, after its eight-year maturation, the British discovered a
These feet
rubber tree excretes more latex if superficially Y-slashed rather than gouged.
Yup. 41. A,
Currently, only 96,000 tons of Brazil's 239,000 tons of consumed rubber is actu­
that fit me.
ally grown, ex tracted, and processed in Brazil, according to Natural Solur¡;6es SetoJ"Ías.
craze driw
Colle,;ting latex from hevea brasiliensis in the Amazon was the work of indentured
to well-ove
la borers. - ied to the groves by rigged contracts and company store 'credit', they were
launched a
hindered hy greecl-bred inefficiency, but the global market had an in satiable urge itself.
free.
Speed. Hcre , Goodyea r enters the picture, developing a vulcanizing process which
But tht
made rubber with stand higher temperatures.
icosities th,
Anyolle wanna go for a r ide? Bouncy tires, smoother rides, softer treading, sheathed
should not
penises, sterile hands ... rubber rubber rubb er everywhere.
So shol
Globe trottin': the rubbe¡' flip-flo p was created in Brazil by a company founded
by a Scots nan and two Englishmen; the raw materials were extracted by African- and
Aboriginal-descended indentured laborers, later, Southeast Asian colonial subjects of Anna Be2
Britannia. Department
The flop of the sole is an object of colonialist desire, an echo of the machete slam­
ming into the soul of a just-freed corpo-real.
SC: birds (JBrazi]

SC: Havaianas webtrack

Runaway Rubber Cat Walk Dance

Havaianas, heaven and the public parts of the private.

Flip-flops are now ubiguitous, not only among the lower classes, but in the higher
echelons of global consumer society. Gctti ng a grip has become fashionable.
Havai mas beat back imposter no-name imports in the 19905 by co-opting a surfer
adaptatio : inverted flip-flops so that the thong and the bottom colors are on the same
sitie, making the shoe stay on during a ride.
 BOUNCING IN THE STREETS 453

'Tops' laun ched a series of cool styles and limited editions-everything f"rom Bra­
zilian Flags to t echnicolored high heels- but flip-flops are flip-flops ...
Moving it fr om its humble beginnings to r unway fashion is an enviable transfor­
: would m ost mation. Delete sweaty brown bodies, but bring up their beach and hou:;e parties
ly sao Paulo soundtrack . Put shoes on harried, sexy consumer. Connect the simplicit)' of human
interaction , natio nalism, and creativit)' through transposition to producto
x (the white Havaianas = beach vagabundo = m arginal = edg)' = unique = evocative =: artist.
le of the pri­ By hiding the labor in the shoe itself and the laboring lar which it was originally
:d the global created through slick packaging- now colored and /o r st enciled, the rubber «fthe shoe
is the package and the product-wearing a flip-flop is a mooernizing turn , a privatiza­
rned to Eng­ tion of pedestrian as flaneur, dabbler, collector.
; success was
SC: Rubber baJls

tree-killing My Souls
lOke it right
I have ver)' flat feet . Flip -flops are a guilt)' pleasure to me, or a torture. Whenever I wea r
: : d again into
them , you' ll rarely hea r that rushed thwack ing o r sex)' dragging. Sucking. Duck feel ,
ntral smoke ­
¡'ve been told, but m)' feet are ver)' long and slender.
TI the Brazil­

¡hed slave r )', sC: Lon8 walkin8j1ipjlops

discovered a
These feet make me stand out in Bahia where 1 watch the flip-flop s go b)'. I \Vear a 41.
l.
Yup. 41. Average size there is about a 32, 34. There are rarel)' cute shoes left on the rack
bber is actu­
that fit m e. Sensible and plain, larger sizes are normally wider. In thi s global Havaiana
ies Setorias.
craze driven b), seasonal, beaded, bejeweled, colored smal! flip-flop s, ranging from $10
f indentured
to well-over a hundred dollars, 1 embod)' 'u nst)'lish'. I fear not: Earth Shoes recently
:', they were
launched a foam pair for the podiatrica ll)' cha llenged . Fashionabl)' expe nsiVl:, r ubber ­
e urge itself.
free.
ocess which
But then there's the cost of slipped discs, crushed toes , elephantine ankb., and va r­
icositi es that pl ag ue the working pOOl' of Bah ia beca use the upper class thinks .hat slaves
ng, sheathed
should not wear shoes ...
So should I get this in the ben)' or topaz?
my founded
=\frican- and
1subj ec ts of Anna Beatrice Scott
Department of Dance, University of Calif orn ia¡ Riv ers id e
lChete slam ­

n the higher

ting a sUl"fer
on the same
 T H E BROI<EN M UG
trip; the t
was cold [
ing. He lo
was an old
eral times
r emember
appeared i
appeared .
by one , an
supposedl:
one of the:
he could ni
to buy a ne
insta nee, a
ously mad{
to bring n
Still he lik(
amount of
and hold it
yo ur hand~
belonged t,
he stilllikt
awakening
He was lale as usual. As he went into th e kitchen he ran through the m otions of every more he mi
morning: making a quick breakfast before rushing to work, and at the same time skim­ tion to toe
ming thro ugh the headlines of t he newspaper. He hea rd the water running through the from it. Th
coffee m achi ne and made sorn e toast wh ile waiting. His shoelaces were still loose . He now his ele
thought ol" t ying them. The to ast was ready and, still reading, he spread it with butter was late. H
and took a bite. He looked at the coffee, irritated that it wasn't ready. He had to go but mugo DecÍ<
need ed th e coffee . The paper distracted him although he was also thinkin g about his serv iee takl
[¡r st m eet ing. He hcard that the coffee was read)' and took a mug from the cupboard. This \~
1le pourcd coffee in it and wal ked back to the tabl e with the spread new spaper. Maybe He had ber
he trippe over hi s shoelaces, maybe noto He suddenly cried out. Scorching hot Iiquid glue it toge
soaked th ro ugh his clothes , burning him . In hi s hand he held the handle and almost went upsta
half of the mugo T he other half lay at h is feet and ro cked slowly before com ing to a halt.
He pulled hi s shir t and tried to clear the fabrjc ofhis trousers from his sk in . Hj s aston­ Ruud Kal
ishment prevented him from feel ing much pain, and the coffee coo led fasto He stood
University o
there too afflcd to think or L do anything. The broken mug was still in hi s hand. The
hr st thing he thought was that he was now certainly too late and it made him angry.
He blamed the mugo \\7hy did it break at thi s precise moment? Exactly when he most
needed to be at work on time. It was as if the mug had decided to annoy him. Well, he
was late anyhow so he sat down and looked at the thing. He still wanted co ffee so he
poured another mug and watched Vl.'r y carefull y whil st carrying it to the table . It held .
H e sat do wn, took a sip and looked at the broken mug agai n. Neatly broken . He lifted
the other alf and it htted preci sel)'. If he applied sorne pressure on, he co uld not see the
crack. The blue flower looked faded as always but complete. He had to look very care­
fully to SE·e it was broken. He didn't understand ho"v it could have broken. He didn 't
 T HE B RO J( E N M U G 455

trip ; the thing just broke. It fel! apart and the contents spilled over him . T he wet fa bric
was cold now, he had to change clothes but he kept look ing at the mug an d wonder­
ing. He looked at t he sma l! dents in the rim. He didn't know there were so many. It
was an old mug and he had never noticed they had b een made . It must have bee n hit sev­
eral tim es over the years. He didn't rememb er how long he had had it. He didn't even
remembe r how it carne into his po ssession. One never bought a coffee mugo They slowly
appeared in the household . Now he thought about it, he had no idea how all his mugs had
appeared. None matched, that was for sure , probably because they had aH appeare d o ne
by on e, and never as a set. They al! were ugly. They invar iably ha d pretentious pri nts or
supposed ly funny texts on them. Given the choice he would never h ave bought a single
one of these mugs. Stil! they were in his house and he used the m. Now he thought of it
he cou ld not re me mber seeing them in the shops. He probably would have no idea where
to buy a nev" one nor could he imagine receiving one as a presento Thi s broken one , for
instance, al! blue flowers, as if it carne from a 19th-cen tu ry farm, but the p ·int so obvi­
ously made by a machine that it enly showed hew path t:ti c the thing was; a ~; il! y attempt
to bring nature into the household and a travcsty of thc Arts and Crafts movcm cnt.
Sti ll he li ked drinking from it . Somewhere it fi t into hi s lips anJ it he ld exac tly the right
amount of coffee. And something about the handle : it felt good to put o ne's finge rs in it
and hold it . Even the thickness of the material was right . It let sorne warmth through so
you r hand s felt good when holding it. The mug was, in a strange way, part ::lf hi s life. It
belonged to hi s m ornings. Although not much of a morning with the ru shing and so on,
he sti l! liked to think of reading the paper with his mug in hi s hand enjoying the slow
awakening. The more he looked at the broken pi eces the more he liked hi s mugo O r the
.ions of every more he mourned for his mugo Stra nge, he thought, because he had never paid any atten­
le time skim ­ tion to the thing. As stated, it was there , it belongeJ to th e hous ehol d and he dra n k
?; through t he from it. That wa s it. It was just a t hing, taken for granted , not worth any atte ntion . But
tillloose . He now hi s clothes were r uined and sticking to his skin. Even worse , because of al! this he
it with butter was late. He bla med the mug for it as if it had decided to fal! apart , to stop b(!ing a uscful
had to go but mugo Decided to get even, cr y for attention . As if the mug had suddenly a 't er years of
.ing about hi s service taken a dislike to him and hit back. As ifit had broken of its own w il! .
he cupb oard . Thi s was ridiculous. H e was ma d abo ut h is cl othes and th e whole mcss he was in.
papero Maybe He had better start changing and hurry up. He considered m ending the thing. He could
ing hot liqui d glue it t ogether. lt didn 't make sense. He stood up amI tossed the pieces in the bin and
le and almost went upstairs t o change.
ning to a halt.
in. His aston ­ Ruud Kaulingfrel<s
~st . He stood
University of Humanistics, Utrecht
hishand. The
:le him angry.
when he most
him. Wel!, he
d coffee so he
table It held.
ken. He lifted
uld not see the
ook ver)' care ­
<en. He didn't
 THE COSMIC SYMBOL
But to me
Small won,
co uld notb
the world (
its, and its i
ception . In
two after it
rational ane
Science
with instrUl
That photo§
sible as spiri
after 1918 , ¡
war and revl
ous clea rly ¡¡
the spiritual
The camera
metaphysica
movement t
1 was given m y first camera on my tenth birthday, my initiatio n into double figures. It visible. Ther
was a Cosmic Symbol, and lloved it. ll oved the tiny white symbols on the lens, the the producti
littl e figur es , the tower block and trees r epresenting infinity, and the weather symbols, My gho
similar to the ones used on film instruction leafl ets. And lloved the name: Cosmic, Iike shooting dir
cosmonauts, signified to me the Soviet world of space exploration. 1 knew littl e else Ol graphed ghc
the Soviet Union, except that it produced the gymnast OIga Korbut. The camera was, plates reveal
of course, also an instrument for me. It cam e after the ca m eras made from the malt tins fe sted itselL
of home-made beer kits, which we used to enter a new spaper pinhole camera contest, the West lea
an.d after I had learned to develop prints in the cupboard under the stairs. It was my these were n
first real 35 mm film camera. With it 1 could do manual photography without having to be en signific
under stand the numerical system for shutter-speeds or fully g rasp the workings of the as evidence ,
aperture. grown copie
This was made possible by the pictogram s o n the lens. They were descendants of orph aned an
Isotype, the sys tem of pictorial statistics invented by the logical positivist and social­ in the Ukrai¡
ist Otto Neurath . Isot ype was intended as a tran sparent universal and neutrallanguage, education alü
able to overcom e barriers o[ literacy and mathematica l competency. It was officially these childre
adopted by the USSR in the early 1930s and gave a neutral, modern and pedagogic air The Dze
to state propaganda . By the 1960s, pictograms w ere being us ed to give a design iden­ tary optics fa
tity to successive Olympics, and as part of the styling of commodities, alongside brand with the Kin
logos. On Soviet cameras, such as the 1964 Vosk hod camera then the Smena Symbol ichesckoye e
(exported as the Cosmic Sy mbol) these symbols are highly stylized, but they ser ve the was one oft l
old purpose of enab ling the cam era to be operated by the photographically semi-literate. photography
It was a cheap , easy-to -use introduction to controlling the technology of photography. It cameras now
,'vas a teaching tool as well as a m ea ns of making pictures. particular th
The Cosmic Symbol was imported to Britai n by a company called Technical and that required
Optical Equipment, which promoted Russian photographic equipment on the basis of its economy tha1
functional and durabl e character, and by association with the Soviet space programm e. the need to pi
As an export name, 'Cosmic Symbol, attempts to conjure up t hes e same associations. specifically SI
 THE COSMIC SYMBOl 457

But to me the name also signified something mystica l, universal , something occult.
Small wonder that the photographs 1 took with it showed ghostly apparitions ,.vhich
could not be seen with eyes alone. My camera wa s an in strument for penetrating beyond
the world of strictly visible phenome na, a magical means of exposing a world 01' spir­
its, and its images corresponded to my 10-year-old self's intensified, hallucinatory per­
ception. In thi s 1 was only unwittingly following in a long tradition: for a decade or
two after its invention the camera had been used as a means to establish spiritualism in
rational and scientific terms.
Science had establ ished the existence of forces and rays invisible to the human eye and,
with instruments like the x-ray, had penetrated beyond the seen world into the unseen.
That photography might similarly reveal imperceptible presences had seemed highly plau­
sible as spiritualism took off in b oth Eastern and Western Europe in the 1870s and again
after 1918, promising the bereaved sorne last contact with relatives and loved ones killed in
war and revolution. Even a series ofhighly publicized frauds and the appearance of numer­
ous clea dy faked ghost photographs intended to ridicule spiritualism did not entirely shake
the spiritualists' faith, nor the faith in the camera as a scientific and objective instrument.
The camera as instrument simultaneously lent support to Neurath's 'physicalist ' and anti­
metaphysical view of an empirically knowable universe and the aim of the spiritua Jist
movement to establish the truth of a non-sensuous reality, a world of spirits beyond the
)uble figures. It visible. There is no paradox in this. More interesting is the way in which the potential for
)n the lens, the the production of spectres is !iterally built into the Soviet camera.
eather symbols, My ghostly apparitions were mostly light lea ks (though some were the result of
le : Cosmic , like shooting directly into the sun - a surefire "vay of conjuring angels). The first photo­
ew little e1se of graphed ghosts in the mid - 19th century were also accidents, in which poorly clea ned
he camera was, pIates r evea led older images beneath the new ex posure. The otherworldly also mani­
)m the malt tin s fested itself as indistinct blobs and blurs. By the 1970s, few consumer model camer as in
:amera contest, the West leaked light, while Soviet cameras had a reputation of being shoddily built. But
:airs. lt was m y these were not produced si mply as cheap exports: since t he 1930s, 35 mm cameras had
ithout having to been significant domes tic commodities, the fact that anyone could own one sta nding
workings of the as evidence of Soviet social and technological achievement. They originated as home­
grown copies of the Leica rangefinder cameras constructed by besprizorniki, children
descendants of orphaned and abandon ed as a result of war and famine. In the Dzerzhinsky commune
ivist and social­ in the lIkraine, set up by and named after the founder of the secret police and led by the
outraJ language , educationalist Makarenko , whose m ilitaristic pedagogy emphasized productive work,
It was offi cially these children manufactured the fir st few Sovi et Leicas (FEDs) in 1932.
ld pedagogic air The Dzerzhinsky commune's success led to the mas s production of ca meras by mili­
e a design ide n­ tary optics factories, then (from 1962 ) by a joint-stock company formed by their merger
alongside brand with the Kinap Motion Pictures Equipm ent plant: the Leningradskoye Optiko Mechan ­
Smena Symbol ich esckoye Obyedinenie (Lenigrad O ptical and Mechanical Enterprise) . Dzerzhinsky's
lt they serve the was one of the first statues to topple following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The
Ily semi-literate. photography industry he indirectly instigated has be en a little more fortunate. LO MO
·photography. Jt cameras now fetch l'e\ative\y high ~Tices and are admi.red rOl' their ' lo -h' aesth etic , in
particular their tendency to leak light: the technical result of a manufacturing system
:1 Technical and that required 'tolerant' exchangeable parts that were easy to assemble and a planned
)l1 the basis of its
economy that empha sized quantity. This manufacturing system was itself the product of
lce programme. the need to produce goods outside (and alongside) a capitalist market system, and 01' the
ne association s. specifically Soviet commodity producti on system.
458 TH E COSM IC SYM BO L

One of th e difficulties with Marx's theory of the commodity is that it is specifi ­ Tf

cally concerned vvith the commodity under capitalism, and offered no prognosis for
the fortunes of the commodity in a communist society. Under capitalism, Marx sug­
gested, the simple useful object becomes a performer. His example is, not incidentally,
a wooden table, which gets up and begins to dance, just as the tables in 19th-century
spiritualist photographs of séances rise from the ground and leap about. And, as in the
séance, it conjures up spirits, for out of its 'wooden brain' arise fraudulent apparitions,
'grotesque ideas'. As Derrida observed , commodity fetishism is a spectral thing, haunt­
ing and animating the object. Revolutionary uprising, Marx implies, can also animate
l he thing-world, turning the tables, and raising the spectre of communism. But the
ghosts produced by fetish ism are mystifications resulting from the capitalist economic
system; in a socialist society, presumably, they would be exorcised. In fact, the Soviet
U nion initially attempted no such thing, developing its own quasi -capitalist consumer
culture under the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. But avant-garde artists and writ­
e rs of the period did try to envisage the socialist consumer object; and they envisaged it
primarily as functional and utilitarian. Commodity fetishism animates the object only
once it has been rendered mute, like the meclium's trance state which allows the spir­
its to speak through her. But the socialist thing, freed of fashion and status-signifying,
w ould be a socially active, transformative technology, dynamic, flexible, and geared to
the demands of a collective society.
We know now that technologies don't eliminate ghosts but generate them. The gaps
and flaws, the white noise, the blurs, the incomprehe nsible interruptions and acciden­
tal marks that haunt modern media are such ghosts. And they ha ve now become the
trappings of style, of a marketable aesl hetic, the useless marks of distinction, fetishis­
tic hauntings which functionalism failed to eliminate. The aesthetic and marketing pos­ In the 198
sibilities of Soviet 3S mm cameras were recognized in the early 1990s by two Austrians a lovely $
who signed a deal with LOMO to become worldwide distributors of the LC-A camera. evoking se
Now they also export the C osmic Symbol, this time as the Smena Symbol, and its tech­ 1 learned t
nical failings have become selling-points. Nevertheless the spectres generated by this that Char!
technology, by its inbuilt technical flaws, as weJl as by the incompetency of its user, are about the
al so the spaces of imagination, intimations of possibility which suggest that the world century, r
might be more, or other, than it appears. More than a commodity, or technical instru­ Charles ar
ment, the Cosmic Symbol remains, for me, a Utopian thing. worthhur
If the
postwar P
References ubiquitow
a rich arra
Fricke, Oscar (1979) 'The Dzer7\hinsky Commune: Birth ofthe Soviet 35 mm Camera lndus­ by custOI11
try ', in Hisrory c:fPhotoBraph)', vol. 3, no. 2, April 1979, pp. 135- 55. MoMA (~
Klomp, Alfred (2007) 'Why 1 Don't Like LOMOgraphy', 'The Voskhod', 'Introduction to the grated int(
Soviet System ', 'The Smena se, 'Technical and o ptical Equipment (London) Ltd', Avail­ The E
able: <http: //cameras.alfreclklomp.com /> (accessed 24 September 2007). Case Stud
ero Califo
Michelle Henning ways, the)
Department of Culture, Media and Drama, University of the West of England, Brist ol encompas!
films , and
national r,
lt is speei fi ­ THE EAMES CHAIR COAX)

°ognosis for
, Marx sug­
ncidentally,
~thocentury
ld , as in the
apparitions,
1ing, haunt­
Jso animate
,m. But the
st eeonomic
:, the Soviet
,t consumer
;ts and writ­
envisaged it
: object only
,ws the spi r ­
,osignifying,
1d geared to

m , The gaps
md acciden­
become the
.on, fetishis­
rketing pos­ [n the 1980s in the throes of graduate school-induced "underemploym ent," I carne upon
vo Austrians a lovely $ 2 chair in a du st y thrift store. [ts scu lpted fibreglass curves called out to me,
:-A camera. evoking sorne vague sense of recognition and comfort . I took it home. [t was years before
and its tech­ I learned that my basic yet e1egant chair was an " Eames," a DAX to be more precise, and
°ated by t hi s that Charles Eames had also made the lively science film of my ju nior high years, the one
: its user, are about the "powers of lO," but that was about al! [ knevv. As we moved toward the 21st
at the world century, m)' 1980s ignorance was impossible to sustain. The mid-century furn iture of
nical instru ­ Chades and Ray Eames became hot com modit ies, and my simple plastic chair was soon
worth hundreds of dollars.
If these chairs have enjo)'ed a renewed interest, they were also quite popula r in
postwar America. Produced in large quantity by Herman Miller, the chairs gained a
ubiquitou s presence in schools, workplaces, and modern homes . They were available in
a rich array of color s and styles, allowing consumers to participate in the design process
:a mera lndus­ by customizing the choice of legs, upholstery, and finish. The chairs were celebrated at
MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) , feat ured across popular culture, and quickly inte ­
1uction to the grated into post-World War [[ American life.
n) Ltd ', Avail­ The Eames Office is best known for its iconic furniture designs and for the famous
). Case Study House 8 (1949), an earl)' experiment in prefab architecture set in south­
ern California. But the Eamses were much more than the creators of furniture; in many
ways, they were designers if and Jor the future, leav ing behind a body of work which
risto l
encompassed furniture and architecture, as well as a vasl image cu lture of photographs,
films, and exhibitions. While their work has recently been feted - in both an inter­
national retrospective and an endless stream of products- I am interested in what
460 THE EAMES CHAIR <DAX)

we might learn from their design practice about the role of objects (or what Charles The future
referred to as 'covetables') in mid-century American culture. From their modu lar furniture, a vis
furnitur e to their vast 'databank' of hundreds of thousands of slides, the work of the number of peD
Eameses provides a valuable case study of a culture in transition from a Fordist to a post­ tic take on our
industrial economy. The central work of the Eam es offic e shifted in the 1960s to what and paradoxical
might best be understood as information designo reveals the labo
From their innovative 1959 exhibition "Glimpses of the USA" (which premiered chairs at the ver
in Moscow and was seen by millions) to th eir museu m displays for corporate clients for Polaroid stri
like IBM , the Eameses developed complex methods for visualizing abstract informa­ celebration of S
tion and for relating image, text, sound, and even smell. They were also deeply engaged mundaneo Such
with computer culture from an eady date, producing books and ex hibits designed to information sysl
illustrate the importance of the computer. Furth er, their interest in computer culture craft and nature
extends far beyo nd works that directly address the machine as subject matter. Rather, Yet, in the
the veryJorm of their investigations into media design p redict the intermedial constructs goods to inform
which so characterize contemporary digital technologies. The Eam eses were deeply participates in tl
interested in how the presenta tion of visua l material impacted its ability to impart process. In a lec!
meani ng , and their work engages \-vith issu es of speed, sca le, relation, juxtaposition, on about the be,
and variation in compelling ways. Finally, their designs also attempted to deploy media ishization of mat
in the service of an enhanced pub lic sphere by illustrating new civic uses of information erialism at preci~
and imagination. Still, their steadfast faith in design limited their ability to critique the The Eames .
world they helped to build and provides valuable "object lessons" for today's theories of as the technolog
media and of obj ects. modes of prodUi
While a look at their experiments in early multimedia might seem far removed from shot rf an importa
my plastic armshell, it would be a mistake to see their furniture designs as somehow jsters. These stra l
standing apart from this legacy of information management. The chairs are part and a particular vers;
parce! of their broad take on the designed environment. At the most literal level, the Europe, Asia, ar
furniture created for Herman Miller was featured prominently in the popular public product line inte
exhibitions they created for clients like lBM . It was also among the first li nes of furni­ Foundation, aut~
ture designed for both the home and the workp lace. Advertisements and product bro­ traditional craft.
chures from the per iod extol the furniture as id ea l for both the livi ng room and the Day of the Dead
board room, while also stressing its modular designo As one 1968 Herman Miller adver­ to indigenous "le
tisemcntproclaimed, the designs were an essential part of "environments for living, Their visual langl
learning, working and healing." Other advertisements situated Eames cha irs and desks as balization and for
part of new-fangled , adaptable "Action Offices," wh ere workers cou ld unwind and relax Of course, n
without having to go home. These traits-the blurring of work and leisure, the rise of now collected, al
mass customization-are often seen as sym ptoms of our contemporary moment, but a study the expans.
close engagement with the Eames legacy he lps us to locate these tendenci cs more accu­ these objects no\'
rately at their mid-century origino Eric Alliez and Michel Feher characterize the post­ at this time. We
indu strial economy that begins to take hold at this time as a shift away from the massive makes the earlier
scale of factory production in the Fordist era toward a regime marked by flexibl e spe­ tic, even as it ren
iaLzation, Tliche marketing, ser vice industries, and an increasing va lorization of infor­ grasp out for gOal
mation (1987: 316). The separation of the spaces and times of production from those of the hand. The
of reproduction which was central to an earlier mode of capita lism is replaced by a new and the sensuous
spatio -temporal configuration in which the differences between work and leisure blur. that our material
This leads to heightened f10ws of information, and the Eames chairs circulate informa­ through and tnro¡
tion just as much as their films or ex hibitions did. Comfortable and beautiful, the chairs and information.
also model new ways ofbeing and laboring in service of a globa l information economy.
 T H E EA M ES e H A 1R (D A X) 461

what Charles The future the Eameses envisioned was a bright and shiny one, sprinkled with [un
neir modular furniture, a vision expressed in Charles's motto 'the most of the hest to the greatest
; work of the number of people for the least'. While their design practices reinforced an optimis­
dist to a post­ tic take on our electronic, modular future, the work of the Eames Office frequently
960s to what and paradoxically focused on craft. For instance, the Iyrical film Kaleidoscopic Jazz Chair
reveals the labor embedded in the commodity and shows many hands working on thc
:h premiered chairs at the very moment furniture is increasingly not made by hand. A film produced
lorate clien ts for Polaroid strives to locate teehnology ver y much within the cveryday by sit uating its
'act informa­ celebration of SX-70 camera's "high techness" among photographs of the domestic and
:eplyengaged mundaneo Such films lovingly detail the wonders of teehnology and the emergence of
, designed to information systems but also shift the focus from technology to images of fa m ily ritual,
)uter culture craft and nature.
IUer. Rather, Yet, in the 1960s, the US economy is shifting away from domestie production of
al constructs goods to information management. In its pioneering in multimedia, the Eames OffiC' ,
were deeply participates in this shift even as its focus on craft and domestieity helps to naturalize thc
ty to impart process. In a lecture ealled "Goods," Charles talks about the "new covetables" and waxes
lxtaposition, on about the beauty of material objects (like balls of twine an d kegs of nails). This fet­
ieploy media ishization of material objeets - how they look, "feel and think"-celebrates a new mat­
'information erialism at precisely the moment the eeonomy begins to go virtual.
) critique the The Eames image banks archive these goods and extol earlier modes of craft even
's theories of as the technologies they are helping to pioneer are destab ilizing the dominance of older
modes of production. This is not simply a variant of imp erialist nostalgia but a snap ­
;movedfrom silot if an important moment if transition between modes if production and epistemoloBical reB ­
as somehow isters. These strategies also naturalize a movement toward carporate globalization and
are part and a particular version of internationalism. The Eames-designed IBM exhibits traveled to
rallevel, the Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and Herman Miller began a rapid expansion of its
'pular public product line into global markets. In ] 958, the Eameses, in partnership with the Ford
nes of furni­ Foundation, authored "The India Report," a curious document that partially fixates on
Jroduct bro­ traditional eraft in asserting the role design might play in India's modernization. From
lom and the Day of the Dead celebrations to Indian lotas to origami, t he Eameses consistently turn
Y1iller adver­ to indigenous "local color" in order to fuel their designs for colorful, postwar living.
:s for living, Their visuallanguage of multi-culti craft helps set the stage for emergent earporate glo ­
and desks as balization and for shifting representations of difference.
nd and relax Of course, most of this escapes me when 1 sit in one of the many Eames chairs I've
e, the rise of now collected, answering work emails from the comforts of home. But as 1 continue to
)ment, but a study the expansive careers of Charles and Ray, 1 wonder about my own investment in
,more accu­ these objects now, and, indeed, about scholarship's increasing turn to material objecb
ize the post­ at this time. We inhabit an era of heightened virtuality and displaced production t hat
the massive makes the earlier, mid-century moment of dematerialization seem quaint and optimis­
flexible spe­ tic, even as it remains an origin story for our presento Yet, like Charles Eames, we still
ion of infor­ grasp out far goods, determined to ground our dissolution through touch and the mark
I from those of the hand. The risk for object studies is that, in our return to materiality, the tactile
:ed by a new and the sensuous might underwrite an elaborate sleight of hand, allowing us to forget
leisure blur. that our material objects are always (at least since the er a of the Eames Office) laced
lte informa­ through and through with powerful, if largely invisible, systems of dematerialized labor
d, the chairs and information.
economy.
462 T H E EA M E S e HAl R ( DA X )

R e ference A Fl
AlIiez, Erie and Miehel Feher ( 1987) 'The Lust er of Capita l', tra nso Alyson Waters, Zone 1- 2,
pp. 3 15- 59.

Tara Mc Pherson
Criti ca l Studies, University of Southern Ca liforn ia

In 2004, Patl
p etta, entitlt
Cornwell 's t
title, for as V
so the detect
The 'tra,
and blue pair
soil samples .
big and brigl
two sites, tht
Examiner, ar
asphyxiated ,
serial killer,
him to be ide
Althougl
ca lly, that is,
jected to a t(
colour charts
to its other p
forth. Its exa
photographic
Of cours
have an exac
they possess
moment, anc
flakes have li
Iys is and recc
ates as a para
 A FLAI<E OF PAINT
/aters, Zone ] - 2,

In 20 0 4, Patricia Cornwell published her thirteenth detect ive st or y featuring Kay Scar ­
petta , ent itled Tra ce. The obj ec t of this b rief essay is to con sider the implications of
Cornwe ll 's trace fragments of the material wodd. These fragm ents give her book its
title, fo r as W alter Benjamin said, traces of the occupant are left on ever)' interior, and
so th e detective story that follow s these traces comes into b eing.
The ' trace ', more properly ' traces ', of Cornwell's story is tiny fl akes of red, white
and blu e paint, together with minute particl es of human bone, which Scarpett a sees in
soil samples when she examines them unde r a compound microsco pe; the fla kes ' look
big and bright, like a child 's building bIocks' (2 004: 348). The samples come from
two sites , the basement area of the institution which she once headed as Chief M edical
Examine r, and the mouth of a girl nam ed Gilly fou nd elsewhe re in the city, ' who was
asphyxiated and had chips of paint and metal in her mouth ' (p. 318) . The murdere r, a
serial kille r, is threate ning Scarpe tta's beloved niece, Lucy, but the trace flakes enable
him to be identifi ed, and his lethal desire for revenge to be thwarted.
Altho ugh this is a fictional narrative , each fl ake of paint is treated entirely realist i­
cally, that is, exactly as it would be in a rea l analytical or forensic investigation. It is sub ­
jected to a te chnical analysis , which dete rmines its preci se colour, judged against the
colour charts fo r paint, and the chemical composition which gives rise to this shade , and
to its other physical characteristi cs, like originalliquidity, degree of hard en ing, and so
forth . Its exact occurrence in tim e and place is es t ablished , that is, they are r ecorded
photographica lly and in the investigato r 's documentation .
Of course , the trace flakes of paint ha ve their own biography, as al! o bjec ts do. They
have an exact presence in the space-time continuum, whi ch com es to them becau sc
they poss ess phy sical bodies, which mu st occ upy one specifi c time and place at any
moment, and no other, as do human s and allliving things. This m ean s that the paint
flakes have life events, which can be reconstructed through the study of physical ana­
lysis and reco rds, written and unwritten . In m any ways, th is m ate riallife hi stor y oper­
ates as a parallel Ji fe to that which the fla kes lead in their 'rea l' li fe; it is a constr uctecl
464 A F LA 1< E OF PA 1N T

narrative of events, presented as an ex planation of why and how the traces come to be domestic sett
whcre they actually are at each specifi c momento It w ould, of course, be equally true to petta, examil
say t hat the paint traces genel-ate their own narratives; it is their physical nature and the with his metl
events they have been involved in which drive their story. One of the themes through­ of the world ,
out Cornwell 's book is the for ensic process of building up what the history of these par­ imaginative s
ticular flakes has been. additional di!
This reconstruction , or reflection, of what has happened t o the flakes may be they and a1l
regarded as the ir secondary lives, that is, their lives which exist in the consciousness encloses, but
of a view er or reporter. Since, however, the only way we can apprehend the flakes at been involvec
al! is through the construction of such secondary biographies, it can be said that, as far that the fictic
as we are concerned, the flakes only exist because we can perceive them. In this sense, what is , in tn
the t race flakes are not 'real', they are symbols of themselves. Scarpetta makes her cru­
ci al find of the traces in the crematorium area of the old building, where dusty steel
trays carrying unclaimed bodies were 'shoved' into a long, dark iron door in the wall,
and pulled out, when 'there was nothing much on them but ashes and chunks of chalky
bone' (p. 466). Unregarded fragments are given emotional and intellectual sign ificance Cornwell, Pan
through the operation ofhuman imagination, in this case Scarpetta's, "vhich transforms
thei r status. She can then add an ethical dimension to her musings. She reflects that the Susan Peal
system did not 'allow the dead any dignity at al!. [... l There were baseball bats propped
Department 01
in a corner because when cremains were r emoved from the oven, sorne chunks of bone
needed to be pulverized' (p. 455).
In the case of all forensic mat erial, in which category the flakes belong, their sym ­
bolic presence is as ev idence . The flakes have become the major player in a secondary
narrative of 'cause and effect' which is credible to us because we b elong to a society
which turns material like the trace flakes into fetishes. We do this by isolating them
from their surrounding matrix and treating them as entities in their own right, which
can have independent characteri stics; they no longer simply respond to us, we respond
to them.
The operation becomes a very complex process in which the flakes are first turned
into the kind of symbol we call 'ev idence', and then this material category of 'evidence'
is detached from the process to be fetishi zed as something existing in its own right. In
Cornwell's book, we see thi s process in action:

In the trace ev idence lab, forensic scientist Junius Eise [ ... l could take him­
sel f out of service for a moment [... l briefly regain a sense of contro!. He
peers into the binocular lenses of his microscope. Chaos and conundrums
are right where he left them [ ... l.
(p. 200)

But Junius works toward s a 'solution' of the conundrums which face him , and even­
tually succeeds. At the climax of the novel, Scarpetta find s 'a spray can of black paint ,
and two touch-up paint bottl es, one red enamel paint and the other blue enamel paint,
both empty, and she places them in a plastic bag' (p. 467). The flakes can be physically
lin ked to the paint bottl es, and to the dead girl and the murderer. The chain of ev idence
is compl ete . In the case of forensic material, thi s is no mere academic exercise; such
thought processes are enough to send aman to the electric chair.
Trace is, of course, a novel, a 'whodunit', in which a murd er takes place within a
 A FLAI<E OF PAINT 465

Ices come to be domestic set t ing, a cast of interested per sons is assembled, th e detective heroine, Scar­
equ ally true to petta, examines the event and its surrounding circumstances, and discloses the killer,
1nature and the with his methods and reasons. Like all fiction , it represe nts a writer 's underst anding
1emes through­ of the "vorld , and particularl)' perhaps of the wa)'s in which his or her characters make
Ir)' of these pa r­ imag inative sense of the circumstances in which they find the mselves . Thi s gives an
additional dimension to the material traces which are at the core of Cornwell's book ;
. flakes ma)' b e they aml all their complex ities have been embodied in a fi c tional narrative, which
:: consciousness encloses , but does not displace , all the other m ental processes in which the traces have
nd the flakes a t been involved, as 1 have just described . The thrust of this short essay has b een to suggest
said that, as far that the fi c tional status of the trace flakes of coloured paint is on l)' the final version of
o. In this sen se, what is, in truth, a series of narratives to which all experienced objects b elo ng.
makes her cr u­
lere dusty stee l
oor in the wall, Reference
hunks of chalk),
ual significan ce Cornwell, Patricia (2004) Trace. London: Little, Brown.
hich tra nsform s
rcflects that the Susan Pearce
all bats propped
Departrnent of Museu rn Studies, University of Leicester
chunks ofbone

ong, their s)'m­

. in a secondar)'
mg to a societ)'
isolating them
/V n right, which
us, we respond

are first turned

TI'
/
of 'evidence'
ts own right. In

take him ­
,ntro1. He
lUndrums

(p. 200)

him, and even­

1 ofblack paint ,
e enamel paint,
an be physi call)'
1ain of evidence
: exercise; su ch

, place within a
 GAME COUNTER
Simulatie
designers
Columbi;
1966. [n
founded 1
befare lo
plete,ori:
founded ~
war gamt
games, fe
informati
nigan ane
arms to r,
among m
ment ofh
Whal
was not SI
map and,
counters I
read ing, ¡
One of the least discussed and least understood aspects of conflict simula­ unfol ding
tion design is, ironicaIly, that which is most obvious: the graphics and physi­ (cutting a
cal systems that make a game a reality in the hands and eyes of the gamer. In or a boxe,
fact, the better the graphic design , the more Iikely it \ViII not be noticed. game. Th,
Redmond A. Simonsen (1977) pieces of e
historical
The US Department of Defense (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1987: 393) de fine s a war game as few other
"a simulation, by whatever means, of a military operation involving two or more oppos­ For exam
ing forces, using rules, data, and proced ures designed to depict an actual or assumed board pie,
real life situation ." During the mid -1970s, commercial game designers (who abhorred batde' (in
the word 'hobbyist') produced m any of the ideas shaping the development of military Buth­
simulations. In the United States, military traditions of wargaming, with historical them ? A t·
roots reaching back to the Prussian Krie8spieJ of the early 19th century, had been driven as NATO'
down by the perceived failures of poli t ical-military gaming since the 1950s, including person or
the Vietnam War. By contrast, sophisticated war game designs were thriving in the the unit t)
commercial sector, beginning with the founding ofThe Avalon HiIl Game Company by more abst
'harles S. Roberts in 1958. Roberts's own Tactics (1952) and Tactics 11 (1958) and sub ­ ties, such ,
sequent Avalon HilI titles like D-Day (1961) popularized wargame conventions such as the symbc
hexagonal grids on maps to regulate movement (borrowed from RAND Corporation, range. Ad
one ofthe military think tanks ), combat result tables, and the use ofprinted cardboard torical ide
counters to represent militar)' units and display their individual characteristics. These iation wit!
innovations shifted the mechanics of boardgame design from abstract strategy (as in heavily on
chess) or chance (as in MonopoIy) to representations ofhistorical reality defined by com­ wargamer
pl ex systems of rules and data, that is, simulation. Boardgames beca me the hotspot of appear to
game design in the 1970s, and war games were at their leading edge. scanned a
While Avalon HiIl introduced th e modern conception of historical war games discussion
as simu lations , further refinement and popularizatíon of this genre was the work of standing e
 GA M E eouN TE R 467

Simulations Publications lnc. (SPI), led by James F. Dunnigan and a group of game
designers that included Redmond Simonsen, Al Nofi, and others. While a student at
Columbia University, Dunnigan designed his first game, jutland, for Avalon Hill in
1966 . In 1969, he becam e the publisher of Strate8,Y &.. Tactícs magazine, which had been
found ed two years earlier. Early issues analyzed data and rules in existing games, but
before long Strate8,Y &.. Tactícs publi shed game modules, add-ons, and eventually com­
plete, original games in every issue. Just before taking over the magazine, Dunnigan had
founded SPI, which took ove¡- publication of Strate8,Y &..Tactícs as well as publishing boxed
war games. His compan)' al so became the leading publisher of boxed commercial war
games, for which Dunnigan coined the term "conflict simulations," and disseminated
information on military systems and history in the magazine . By the late 1970s, D un­
nigan and his collaborators were working closely with the US Army and other service
arms to r e-invigorate military wargaming, planting the seeds of a deeper collaboration
among military and commercial designers that would eventually lead to the develop­
m ent ofhigh -end computer simulations for military training.
What distinguished issues of Strate8,Y &.. Tactí cs physically from other magazines
was not simply that there was a new game in every issue, but the inclusion of a printed
map and cardboard counters that spilled out of the magazine . Removing the map and
counters naturally took preceden ce over the articles. Deconstruction for once preceded
reading, as these objects were first eagerly removed from each new issue, followed by
:t simula­ unfolding the map and - for those who chose to play the game - carefully 'punching'
md physi­ (cutting away) counters from their ca¡-dboard sheets. Whether from a magazine issue
gamer. In or a boxed game, playing a conflic t simulation began with physical construction of the
ticed. game. The essential building blocks were the counters, typically half-inch square play ing
en (1977) pieces of cardboard-and-ink. They were called 'unit co unters' , because they represented
historica l or hypothetical military units or perhaps índividualleaders or politicians. (A
:s a war game as few others were merely 'markers' that helped players to keep track of the game state .)
or more oppos­ For example, th e rules for Avalon Hill's Bitter Woods (1998) tell players that 'the card­
.ual or assumed board pieces or unit counters represent individual combat units that fought during the
(who abhorred batde' (in this case, the Batde of the Bulge).
nent of military But how do players know which units are represented or what the counter is telling
with historical them? A ty[Jical unit counter features a symbol taken from standard military schem es such
had been driven as NATO's 'Military Symbols for Land Based Systems'; if the counter depicts an indiviJ ual
950s, including person or vehicle, it usually shows an image or silhouette instead. This symbol identifies
thriving in the the unit type (say, cavalry or infantry or king). From that point, the informatíon becomes
me Company by more abstracto Larger numbers usually placed below the sy mbol quantify unit capabili­
(19 58) and sub­ ties, such as fighting strength and movement rate; smaller numbers, usually to the side of
ventions such as the symbol, stand for any number of additional characteristics, from morale to w eapon
O Corporation, range. Additional numbers and letters, usually at the top of the counter, reveal the his­
inted cardboard torical identity of a unit, and colors or color bands indicate at a glance nationality 01' aHíl­
:teristics. These iation with other uníts on the board. Reading information on a typical counter depends
t strategy (as in heavily on conventions of representation that are virtuall)' undecipherable to anyone but a
denned by com­ wargamer. As complicated as the grid of information on this tiny cardboard square might
le the hotspot of appear to be, by the mid-1970s it had becom e so conventional that players immediately
scanned and interpreted counters upon opening a new game, then launched into heated
rical war games discussions of the game system's accuracy as a detailed simulation. It is through the under ­
,vas the ,"york of standing of these conventions that game counters link simulation and subculture.
468 GA M E eouN TE R

T he co nsumption of media by readers, viewers, and players typically leads to immaterial

thc evaluation of books, movies , or games in terms of content rather than packag­ sequenee.!
ing, to experience of using rather than system of constructing. And so it has been with componenl
boardgames . Redmond Simonsen, who led SPI's efforts to systematize development tations of e
and production of historical simulations in the late 1960s and eady 1970s, neverthe­ Rulebooks
le. s sought frequently to unveil the production process for players. In one essay (1977) hist orieal r
wr itten for a book on wargame design, Simonsen described the role of graphic design in sorted as a
"simulation games" and "how a game is produced" as terra incognito. He m eant that effec­ tations of r
tive producti on and graphic design should in fact be invisible. What b etter way to iIlus­ as window
trate a wargame design maxim than with a military metaphor, which Simonsen called ingly perha
"t he signal-to-noise ratio in graphics." As Simonsen put it, "the player is an unspecial­ an abstraet
ized demolitions man defusing a complex bomb and receiving instructions on how to do them by ur
so via a radio. The game is the bomb, the game designer is on the other end of the radio that are Of1
and the artwork is the radio." Hi s explication of artwork and physical system design in that we ear:
vvargames owed as rnuch to Claude Shannon as it did to industrial product design, for
Simonsen viewed good design of counters, maps, and rules as a communicative act.
T hinking of counters and other boardgame artifacts as codewords and radios of
course makes it much easier to ruminate about games as a medium, but it also raises the
question of how the materiality of these games works for them. If the game design is Dunnigan, J
easily "read" in terms of the rules system and components, and the act of moving a piece ] oint Chiefs
Terms.
or reading a results table is entirely contingent upon the strategies and tactics of play,
Simonsen, 1
the ph)'sical components of boardgam es such as historical simulations becorne purely
Scrace¡
informational; their physicality becomes in some sense "immaterial." We can easily
/ation
appreciate the rush to "computerize" simulation that began in th e late 1970s. As this
rush was about to begin (but without reference to it), Simonsen used the term "physi­
cal system" in his essay to explain how graphics design function s in conflict simulation Henry Lo
boardgames; his idea of a system portrayed physical components as aids to the play­ History of S
er's "work" of digesting and using information needed to playa game and encompassed St anfo rd Ur
r u les, tables regulating movement on the map, and data presented on unit counters.
Dunnigan, the rockstar designer of SPI's boardgames, realized that many wargam­
ers ignored the possibiliti es offered by agonistic play; they were only interested in the
s)'stem itself, not the interactivity of gameplay. He pointed out often that studying the
components of historical simulations was a way of quite literally reading game systems
as authored accounts of hi storical events. Gamers who did this collected boardgames
without ever punching the cou nters, let alone playing them . Dunnigan (1980) recog­
nized, however, that "this does not m ean they are not used ." Such a "pI ayer" engaged the
simu lation in a different way, "unfolded maps, looked at counters, read rules, or maybe
set up an opening move for sol itaire play to discern orders ofbattle, the lay of the land ,
and the historical commander's options." These moments of single-player simulation
always occurred in a player's "head with the aid of game components."
Today computer simulations and video games have usurp ed the terms simulation
and game. The dominant game cultures form around digital games. Therefore it makes
sense to contrast the material boardgame to its computer-based counterpart. Consider
"real-time strategy" games such as the Worcraft series . In these games, information is
interface; players master interface as the syntax of tactics. This interface mastery calls
upon a physi ality (reflexes, fast hand movements) absent in "phy jcal," paper-based
boardgames. By contrast, how one moves the playing piece of a boardgame is indeed
 GAME COUNTER 469

cally leads to immateria l; whether a player can move his cardboard counter quickly is of no eon ­
than paekag­ sequence . But pe rhaps it is even more important to credit the ways in which the physical
has been with components of a boardgame eonvey modes of simulation disentangled from the expee ­
developmen t tations of experience, interactivity, and performance of digital simulations and games.
'Os, neverthe­ Rulebooks and graphics systems can be read in order to understand a complex model of
~ essay (1977) historical reality as a system rather than an interface, counters scanned on the sheet or
phic design in sorted as a kind of historieal manifest , eounter values translated into abstraet represcn­
ant that effee ­ tations of histo rieal 01' predicted performance, or maps earefully laid out on the table
r way to ill us­ as windows through whieh a flow of events ca n be perceivcd and understood. Surpris­
non sen ealled ingly perhaps, the material objects of pap er-and-cardboard confliel simulations open up
an unspccial­ an abstraet information space that calls upon the (often solitar y) player to contemplat
onhow to do them by understanding deep issues of scale, quantificat ion, and modeling in simulation
d of the radio that are often hidden from view in digital games. Th" boardgame counter teaches us
tem design in that we can hold a simulated world in our hand s.
ct design, for
ative act .
and radios of References
liso raises the
lme design is Dunnigan, J. (1980) The Complete Wa rgames Handbook . New York: Morrow.
lOving a pieee Joint Chiefs of Staff (1987) Publicacion 1, Deparcmenc ifDifense Dicti onary ifMilitary and Associated
Terms. Washington, DC: GPO.
¡ctics of play,
Simonsen, R . (1977) 'Image and System: Graphics and Physical Systcms Design', in Staff of
~co me pu rel y
Scrate8Y & Ta ct ics magazine, War8ame Desi8n: Th e Hi scor)', Production and Use if Corifiict Slln u­
Ve can eas ily
laCion Carnes. New York: Hippocrene.
:nOs. As this
term "physi­
ct simulation Henry Lowood
; to the play­ History of Science and Technology Collections and Film and Media Collections,
encompassed Stanford University, California
:ounters.
any wargam­
rested in the
studying the
:ame sys tems
boardgames
1980) recog­
, engaged the
es, or maybe
{ of the land,
:r simulation

IS simulation

fore it makes
rt. Consider
formation is
nastery eall s
paper -based
ne is indeeJ
 THE GRAY'S INN LANE HANDAXE
continen
Inn Lane
thing but
stir was i
Attr
evolution
lengi ng.
drowned
people in
catastrop
to Britair
handaxe-'
offered b·
find in 17
Steno, wf
near Arez
into Engli
quaries in
thathe di,
elephant 1
cu rrent ir
navigable
probJem \
Briton rat
British Museum Press publishes a series of short books each of which deals with an im­ At th,
portant object in the museum's collection. The Rosetta Stone, the Lewis Chessmen, Conyers'
the Sutton Ho o H elmet and the Anderson-Gayer Cat are among the titles, but, when Master of
offered the topic of the Gray's Inn Lane handaxe, the Press declined a contribution Kemp, be
about this 350,OOO-year-old flint impl ement. What makes one object more significant lection of
than another? The Gray's Inn Lane handaxe is not a unique, priceless piece of artistry by Hans SI
produced for the elite echelons of a hierarchica l society. It is an example of a common the onl)' o
type of handheld tool made in northern Europe between about 600,000 and 40,000 sidered an
years ago but stretching back to about 1.7 million years ago in Africa and just over a mil­ some rem
lion years in Asia. Prior to the 20th centur y, no object was so widely made and used , but fi nd s frolr
this remarkable geographical and chronological spread also make s a handax e mundaneo lected for
W hat would justify a short book about a particular Coca-Cola can or a ceJl phone? Asso­ that the El
ciation with a celebrity name would do for the modern analogy but not for a handaxe: in was differl
the ar chaeology of human evolution the artisans, like many of their more recent coun­ the handa
terparts, are forever anonymous . So what led to the collection of the Gray's Inn Lane a period o
handaxe and how is ir still on ex hibition toda)'? referred b,
The Gray's Inn Lane handaxe has sometimes bee n cited as the first stone tool to be By th(
published as an ancient tool or weapon in times when such shaped stones were gener­ led to the
ally r egarded as being of supernatural origin: made by elves or fairies or having fallen ies were a
from the sky. Unfortunately, the r esulting implication that the Gray's Inn Lane handaxe handaxes'
represents the triumph of rat iona l empiri cism over superstition is not true. While the quaries th
Gray's Inn pie ce is certainly the first handaxe to be published as an anc ient artefact, present \Ve
other types of stone tool had been desc ri bed and ilJustrated as such in both British and so repeate
 THE GRAY'S INN LANE HANDAXE 471

continental works of the late 17th century. By the time John Conyers found the Gray's
Inn Lane handaxe in 1673 no literate person would question that such an object was any­
thing but another new type of humanly manufactured implement. What really caused a
stir was its discovery next to an elephant tusk.
At the end of the 17th century nothing was know n about ice ages, climate change,
evolution or extinctions, so the implications of this juxtaposition were profoundly chal­
lenging. There were two possible explanations for it: the elephant could have been
drowned by the biblical flood but, given the handaxe, this wo uld mean therc w ere
people in Britain before Noah's sons had been sent out to repopulate the earth after that
catastrophe. The alternative possibility was that this was one of the elephanb brollght
to Britain by Emperor Claudius during the Roman invasion of AD 43 and killed by
handaxe-wielding Britons defending their territory. This was the safe, preferred opinion
offered by John Bagford, a dealer and antiquary who published an account of Conyers'
find in 1715. It was in line with the views of the great naturalist Niels Stensen known as
Steno, who explained the occurrence of elephant remains in gravels of the River Arno
near Arezzo in Italy as evidence of Hannibal's invasion. Steno's work had been translated
into English and published by the Royal Society in 1679 and was well known to the anti­
quaries in Conyers' cirele. However, looking at Conyers' manuscript notes, it is possible
that he did not publish his own finds because he was finding it difficult to justify how the
elephant remains could have ended up dispersed in the gravels by the force of the river
current in Roman times. This required that the elephants were brought by boat along a
navigable river and slaughtered on Janding. Conyers wrestled unsuccessfully with this
problem whereas Bagford ignored it, preferring to celebrate the work of an Ancient
Briton rather than grapple with a controversy about its potential age_
s with an im­ At the time of its discovery, the Gray's lnn Lane handaxe was clearly valued. From
is Chessmen, Conyers' own museum in Shoe Lane it passed to the collection of the controversial
:s, but, v"hen Master of Merton College Oxford, Dr Charlett, and then to the London antiquary John
contribution Kemp, better known for his interest in coins and elassical material. When Kemp's col­
,re significant lection of fine Greek and Roman items was sold, the handaxe was eventually acquired
ce of artistr y by Hans Sloane and finally, through his auspices, The Br itish Museum where it remained
ofa common the only object of its kind for the next 150 years. Its survival confirms that it was con­
) and 40,000 sidered an interesting, if contentious, piece. Having acquired the handaxe, Sloane did
1St over a mil­ sorne remarkable research on elephants, drawing together the published records of
and used, but finds from al! over Europe and fol!owing up accounts by travellers in Russia, and col­
¡xe mundane. lected for Tsar Peter the Great, of frozen mammoths found in Siberia. He coneluded
phone? Asso­ that the European elephants and mammoths must have lived at a time when the climate
a handaxe: in was different before Noah's flood. Perhaps to avoid controversy, Sloane did not mention
: recent coun­ the handaxe, but as the 18th century progressed and the concept that there had been
-ay's Inn Lane a period of human activity prior to written history developed, antiquaries frequently
referred back to it.
one tool to be By the 1790s the geological work of William 'Strata' Smith and James Hutton haJ
's were gener­ led to the widespread acceptance of the much greater age of the earth, and antiquar­
- having fallen ies were also referring to an unspecified but longer timescale for prehistory. When
Lane handaxe handaxes were found at Hoxne in Suffolk in 1800, John Frere told the Society of Anti­
ue. While the quaries that they were made at la ver)' remote period indeed, even be)'ond that of the
cient artefact, present world', echoing in its latter part Hutton's view that the earth was so old and hacl
)lh British and so rcpeatedly changed that 'therc was no vestige of a beginning'. However, it was not
472 THE GRAY'S INN LANE HANDAXE

the H oxne discovery which was invoked when, in the 1860s, the question of human T
antiquity was reinvigorated by Darwin's theory of evolution and a group of eminent
geologists, palaeontologists and antiquaries visited the Somme Valley in France to H
examine the discovery of handaxes with the remáins of extinct animals. Finding them
to be contemporary remnants of a newly recogn ized Ice Age period, the savants recalled
the Gray 's Inn Lane handaxe and recognized its significance. The object has opened
most histories of archaeology ever since.
Exhibited in Room 1 of The British Museum, the Gray's Inn Lane handaxe is now
shovvn amongst other natural and artificial things whieh altered our understanding of
history and nature in the 18th century and provided the intellectual impetus, as well
as the practical knowledge base, for the economic and social changes of the industrial
revolution and the artistic aspirations of the Romantic Movement. As welJ as being a
stone tool deftly made for some everyday task some 350,000 years ago, it is an object
which stands for the history of ideas which could only be explored and developed in the
milieu of a stable, tolerant society. This history justifies its presence, but what of other
everyday items, ancient and modern, which lack such association?
We tend to forget that history is often a means of justifying the present. In the
context of museums and galleries it is al so the narrative which enables us to build up
a reassuring accumulation of treasured objects which not only project the acquisitive
compulsion of consumerism, but also provide a reflection of what culture we value and
how we wish to project ourselves through it. In many of the world 's major museums and
galleries the collections are confined to works of art from the great civilizations . The
obj ects revered are priceless items which played no part in the daily lives of the major­ The last (
ity of people in the hierarchical societies in which they were made. This is not the case on the IV
at the British Mus eum, the Smithsonian, the H ermitage or Peter the Great's Kunstkam­ small, pI:
mer in St Petersburg. In these institutions, all founded during the Enlightenment, the barrio. T
ordinary paraphernalia of prehistoric and recent life are collected though archaeological like "Smi
excavation and anthropological fieldwork with as much enthusiasm as the instantly rec­ meets, ar
ognizable masterpieces of world culture. Elsewhere they are excluded and passed to spe­ cal sketcr
cialist natural history or anthropological collections . The consequent repetition of what thattheir
culture and types of society we should respect has conditioned our expectation that the movie. G
products of elites are what we should see, whereas the genius of everyman may be rele­ in Oaklar
gated and pejoratively judged as 'other' because it do es not leave us in awe of the power, José, the
wealth or faith of the society which produced it. Of course, we should gaze in wonder at In this ce
great works, but a reminder of our common origins, basic needs and everyday ingenu­ of inforrr
ity tempers such icons with less chauvinistic themes which we could equally explore and progress
r esp ect for thcir relevance to modern Jife in the way of thc EnJightenment. It is perhaps on their 1
thi s rather than history whieh should justify a place for an object on display. sider the
material
gendered
Ji ll Cool<
By ti
Department of Prehistory and Europe, The British Museum those wh
informat
many Of1
sede. At
tation th:
expansio
m of human THE HOMIES, OR THE LAST ANGEL OF
,of eminent
n France to HISTORY IN SILICON VALLEyl
inding them
mts recalled
has opened

Idaxe is now
rstanding of
~tus, as well
le industrial
11 as being a
is an object
:loped in the
,hat of other

sent. In the
to build up
o acquisitive
ve value and
lUseums and
lations. The
,f the major­ The last decade or so has witnessed an explosion of collectable plastic figurines for sale
not the case on the world market. Leading the way have been the Homies, a popular line of ver y
's Kun stkam ­ small, plastic figurines representing the largely Chicana / o inhabitants of an imaginar)'
:nment, the barrio. These finely detailed and painted figures of various barrio 'types', with names
chaeological like "Smiley," "Shy Girl," and "Spooky," are widely sold in gumball machines, at swap ­
1stantly rec­ meets, and on eBay. Each of the almost 200 Homies has a name and a brief biograph i­
lSSed to spe­ cal sketch, and together over 100 million have been sold. They ha ve been so successful
tion ofwhat that their creator, David Gonzales, is developing a Homies TV series, video game, and
lion that the movie. Gonzales works on the expanding Homies merchandising empire from his office
nay be rele­ in Oakland, and he has based many of the figures on people from his hometown of San
fthe power, José, the Chica no metropolis directly adjacent to northern California's Silicon Valley.
n wonder at In this context the Homies have emerged as revealing iconic responses to the history
'day ingenu ­ of information technology in Silicon Valley and the euphoric fantasies of technological
explore and progress that accompanied it. In contrast with studies of IT and cyberspace that foc us
lt is perhaps on their transcendence of time, space, and materiality, l he Homies invite us to recon ­
sider the ways in which ideas and fantasies about new media emerge in relationship to
material conditions of production that depend upon the exploitation of racialized and
gendered migrant labor.
By the mid 1990s, a new, high-tech economy had emerged in Silicon Valley, and, for
those who profited, such growth sustained an optimistic ideology of progress through
information technology. Its promoters projected that the IT economy would transcend
many of the limitations of the old, industrial age of capitalism that it promised to super­
sede. At the same time, however, the new industry reproduced forms of labor exploi­
tation that recalled earlier forms of production. The dot.com boom depended upon an
expansion of low-wage jobs and the employment in particular of migrant women in
474 THE HOMIES, ORTHE LAST ANGEL OF HISTORY

Silicon Valley, the US / Mexico border region, and other parts ofthe world. Many low­ neigt
wage jobs in IT production are dangerous, exposing workers to highly toxic chemicals. acter
Moreover, during the boom, Silicon Valley was highly segregated, and Mexican and Asian cal SI
workers lived in poor neighborhoods vulnerable to the dumping of toxic waste gener­ age h
ated by IT industries, In response, workers have organized unions and environmental time
organizations, including the successful unionization of janitorial workers at Apple and thc e
other companies in Silicon Valley, an d environmental justice organizations such as the work
Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and the Silicon Valley high­
Toxics Coalition (SVTC) that fight the disproportionate vulnerability of workers to dis­ the r
ease and death from exposure to industrial tox ins on the job and in their neighborhoods. nies (
The Homies express these con fli cts b etween capital and labor by alternatively inclul
undermining and reproducing industry fan tasi es of technological progress. In recent toe e
history, the increasing sp eed and shr inking size of n ew communications technologies "shad
have been represented as sign s of t echnological progress, the commodity fetishes of the who,
information age. This emphas is on sp eed and si ze tended to symbolically dematerialize j
communications commodities and t he labor that produced them. In the first instance , "Win
the speed of information flows promised to m elt formerly solid geographical distances becar
into thin air, enabling con sumers to com municate in real time with people in vastly dis­ now
tant places. Moreover, this manner of fetishizing the new technology tended to displace ti ves
alternative representations of space such as the segregated work sites and neighborhoods lar, n
in and around Silicon Valley. In the case of size, the style and form of shrinking comput­ By re
ers and cell phones suggested commodities that were so high teeh that their thin margin undel
of materiality seemed on the verge of vanishing without leaving a trace of the labor that IT in<
made them. In these ways, narratives of t echnological progre ss contributed to forms of \
reification that seemingly "disapp eared" the labor of the women of color who built Sili­ inequ
con Valley and other nodes in the h igh-tech economy. of pn
Collectively, the Homies gave three- dimensional shape to these contradictions. prodl
From one perspective, they effectively leveraged counter images of the micro that, tral p
instead of obscuring labor, actually foregrounded the Chicana/o working class. From novel
this vantage point, they represent the return of the oppressed workers disappeared in nese I
dominant depictions. From another perspective, however, as commodities them selves, Homi
the Homies replicated the reifi cations of shrinking cell phones and computers . Individ­ Silieo
ual Homies recalled the icon s and avatars of cyberspace, whereas prepackaged Homies, JI
geometrically arranged and covered in modular clear plastic, resembled computer disks effeet
and microchips. All of which remind s us that Gonzales is himself a sort of informa tion eneoc
capitalist who markets the Homie bl-and to manufacturers and other licensees. Recall­ the H
ing the horizontal disintegration of production characteristic of post-Fordi sm, Gonzales ized t
in effect subcontract s with other compani es in order to produce the Homies . But if the diseu:
Homies represent the occluded Chicana/o working class, who makes the Homies? AH critic:
of the figures in m)' collection have "Made in China" stamped on their backs, suggesting world
that the Homies have followed the strategy of the many IT companies that have turned able ,
to manufacturing zones on the coast of China in search of cheap female labor. ideole
Similarly, the Homies also represent contradictory responses to influential dis­ ures t
COUl'ses about speed and ncw media tcchnology. Whereas discourses of speed prom­ "diale
ise to enable the users of new technologies to compress time and space and transcend tal anl
temporal and geographic boundaries, the Homies are imaginatively rooted in a barrio are eo
with well-defined borders. By focusing on the distinctiveness of the barr io, the Homies' contil
 THE HOMIES, OR THE LAST ANGEL OF HISTORY 475

orld. Many low­ neighborhood marks the forms of segregation and uneven development that have char­
toxic chemicals. acterized information capitalism. In contrast to a progressive narrative of technologi­
ex ican and Asian cal speed triumphing over space, the Homies' barrio reminds us that the inform ation
xic waste gener­ age has also reproduced local geographic differences . Rather than simply compressing
::l environmental time and space, information capital reproduces differences between , on the one hand,
crs at Apple and the exclusive neighborhoods of Silicon Valley millionaires and, on the other hand , the
,ions such as the vvorking-class barrios near one of the man)' regional Superfund sites produced by the
he Silicon Valley high-tech industry's dumping of toxic waste. The Homies also indirectl)' reference
f workers to dis­ the race and gender segregation within the industr)'. Whereas Silicon Valle), compa­
neighborhoods. nies expressly target immigrant women for low-wage jobs, the Hom ies' neighborhood
by alternatively includes more men, many of whom are involved in activities in the informal sector of
'gress. In recent the econom)', including petty crime, With what one newspaper account called t heir
)ns technologies "shad), histor)'," man)' Homies represent the reserve arm)' of male lumpenproletarians
ty fetishes of the who are excluded from low-wage work in the formal sector.
Iy dematerialize A good example is the Homie called "Wino." According to his on-line biograph)',
le first instance, "Wino" us ed to own a "Dot-Com website compan)''' but h e returned to the barrio and
Iphical distances beca me an alcoholic when his company failed: "H e used to drink Crystal and Dom
'pie in vastly dis ­ now it's Ripple and T-Bird." In contrast with the upward are of conventional narra­
nded to displace tives of technological progress and b oom time upward mobility, vVino's story is circu­
:l neighborhoods lar, returning to the same limited barrio conditions and prospects with which it began.
rinking comput­ B)' representing a perspective from below on the dot.com boom, figures like \Vino
beir thin margin undermine fan tasies of technological progress b), suggesting that new developments in
of the labor that IT industri es coincided with older forms ofbarrio segregation and povert)'.
'uted to forms of While the Homies seem to represent the intractabilit)' of spatial seg regation and
Jr who built Sili­ inequality in the face of IT's compression of time and space, however, their own mode
of production presupposes just such tim e / space compression. Gonzales developed h is
contradictions. products on the margins of the new eco nomy and ultimately mimicked some of its cen­
the micro that, tral practices. He markets the H om ies on the web and presumably takes advantage of the
cing class. From novel forms of"just-in-time" production that th e Internet and subcontracting with Chi­
s disappeared in nese manufacturers enable. As these examples all suggest, at one and the sa me t ime the
ities themselves, Homies undermine and reinforce the ideas and practices associated with IT industries in
Jputers. Individ­ Silicon Valle)', combining the perspective of the worker with that of the capitalist .
.ckaged Homies, In contrast with other approaches to reading cultural objects, in which they are
1computer disks effectivel)' praised or blam ed for the subversive or dominant ideas the)' supposedl)'
t of informa tion encode, I have instead attempted t o co nstruct a dialectical materialist interpretation of
.censees. Recall­ the Homies which focuses on how the)' represent the labor relations that have charact e r­
rdism, Gonzales ized the recent history of the information age and new m edia, contex ts which are often
)mies. But if the discu ssed as if the)' had little to do with labor. On the one hand , thc Homies bring into
the Homies? AH critical relief the phantasmagoria of information technolog)', defetishizing the dream
acks, suggesting worlds it conjures up by representing people and places exploited or rendered dispos­
that have turned able within IT economies. On the other hand, however, the Homies also reproduce
labor. ideologies of technological progress that obscure the labor that produces the plasti c fig­
) influential dis­ ures themselv es. Icons with two hands, the Homies are what Walter Benjamin callcd
of speed pro m ­ "dialectical images" that express the raced and gendered contradictions between capi­
:e and transcend tal and labor that have informed th e lT economy. vVhich is finall)' to sa)' that the Homies
Joted in a barrio are contradictory because the contradictions be tween capital and labor that they express
ri(J, the Homies' continue to dog us, even in a vvorld of virtual realities.
476 T H E HOMIES, OR THE LAS T ANGE L OF HISTORY

Note INSI I
"The Last Angel of History" is a reference from Walter Benjamin's essay, "Thesis on the
Phi losophy of History." My accou nt of Silicon Valley is drawn from Lisa Sun Hee Park
ancl David Nabuib Pellow (2 002) The Silicon Va lley cf DJ'eams: En vironmenta l l njusti ce, Imm i­
aran l Workers, and the Hiah-Tech Global Eco nomy, New York: New York U nivers ity Press, and
Stephen J. Pitti (20 0 3) Th e Devil in Silicon Valley: No rth ern California, Race, and ¡l;[exican Amer­
icans, Princeton, N J: Princeton U niversity Press.

Curtis Marez
Critic al Studies, Univer si ty of Southern California

Few instrumel
sion as the ¡Po
creating new v
erat ed verbal ,
'touchscreen'.
'Jony'.
The ubiql
sales of this rr
to earl )' 2006,
strip the Sony
by 2012, desp i
)'ear, new mar
sa jes with a rel
The iPod!
tion, growth,
m ano The diff
has gone a lot f
ch anges in caf
commerciaJ at
which takes 0 1
bill ion tunes;
2006 ) - profi
 INSIOE ANO OUTSIOE THE iPOO

"Thesis on the
Sun Hee Park
•lnjustice, lmmi­
rsit)' Press, and
,d Mexican Amer-

Few instruments of personal and collective pleasure have gained so much design discus­
sion as the iPod. Almost every aspect of it has been familiarized into everyday parlance,
creating new words (e.g. 'podcast') and expressions (' iPodding'). Its features have gen­
erated verbal shortcuts to imagining the whole object: 'c1 ickwheel' and more recently
'touchscreen'. Even its ch ief designer, Jonathan Ive, has become better known simply as
'Jony'.
The ubiquity of iPod-derived language may be explained by the sheer volume of
sales of this most social of personal music players. From its laun ch in October 2001
to early 2006, 50 m illion iPods had been sold. lt was est imated that sa les would out ­
strip the Sony Walkman and Discman's cumulat ive units of 309 mi Jlion over 27 years
by 2012, despite being in a more competitive marketplace than its predecessor. By this
year, new market penetration was tailing off - consolidation was to be through ¡'epeat
sales with a replacement cycle of 18 months (Cred it Su isse 2006).
Th e iPod might have moved through the c1assic product Iifecycle cur ve of introduc­
tion, growth, maturation and decline ¡ike its evolutionary predecessor, the Sony Walk­
mano The difference that challenges such business school orthodoxies is that the iPod
has gone a lot further. Upgrades have moved beyond incremental changes of style to sté'p
changes in capacit y and performance. More importantly, it is hard-wired into a sel o f
commercial and social networks. Usage is contingent on its supporting iTunes software
which takes one directly into the entire Apple download r etail system. By 2006 over a
billion tunes and 15 mili ion movies had been downloaded from the iStore (Ferguson
2006) - profit from downloads is th e staple bread-and-butter that the iPod instigates.
478 INSIDE AND OUTSID E TH E iPOD

Use takes you from the object to a more ex tensive system of technologies and com­ is jnterr
mercial actions. It also moves from intimate, personal use to social worlds. Thus the packagil
objcct has to be analysed in its own terms as wel! as within a constel!ation of aesthetic object o
gestures. , instrun
Formally, the iPod is highly ordered. Its uniforml y white or black front, sans serif sort of 1
t ypeface and un compromi singly minimalistic rectilinear interface provide a visual c1ar­ must be
ity. The conjunction of circle and rectangle, shar ing the same proportions, anchors it design a
into a modernist canon of geometrical platonic perfection. This is completed by your Me,
own contento lt is the perfect, m etaphorical 'white cube' within which you can curate shiny, re
your personal sound collection. Meanwhile, "vhere the fascia offers an environment screws,
to 'step into', its reflective back acts as a protective minoro It invites engagement and headqua
repels detachment. intervie'
Its curved edges encourage holding and this is where the intimate interaction begins. Apple el
Using your iPod is more than just listening. It entails an entire bodily immersion. Once possible
in use, the iPod delivers conespo ndence between tactil e, visual and aural experience. Entl
Its clickwheel provides a raised textured surface. Thi s acts as a visual signature for the iPhone l
object but also as its touchpoint. Circular stroking and scrolling through the menu on nomen o,
its screen brings together touch and sight. This action is complcted as sound is selected it into nt
and delivered through its distinctive white earphones. The iPod invites touch, holding, ever in a'
manipulating, caress ing. lts surface is an exoskcleton to an intimate technology. The with pro
addition of an iSkin - an optional thin covering - adds to this notion. And so it turos the bly in Le
user into part cyborg, ex tcnding the body into an electron ic gadget and that digital tech­
nology back into the body.
Once this embodied experience is instigated through the object, then it conn ects
the body to space and action. The iPod's capacity to aJ"chive sound and for this to be
arranged in personalized formats, for example through the creation of specific play­ Barthes,
lists, means that, in turn, it becomes instrum entalized in the creation of soundtracks to Credit Se
Ferguson
everyday activity. Li stening to certain tunes to accompany particular activities - com ­
Ser
muting, jogging, ironing - turos these ordinary acti ons into filmic experiences. A verve
for photographing one's iPod at distinctive global tourist destinations and uploading this
image onto the iLounge .com website reinforces this equation between specified sound Guy Ju
and place. The exot ici sm of such destinations is made familiar by the proven presence The Leed
of an iPod and the memory of what was be ing listened to at the time . Individual engage­
ment with the object is constantl y linked , then, to an outer world. Sometimes the con­
nec t ioo via the iPod is to mundane ac tivity, SOllletillles to cxtraordinary mOlllents.
( laving eoll · 'ted an ¡ arl'hived tunes, layers of othe." activities are engaged through
and beyond the object. Swapping music files with frie nds, making the iTunes library
availablc to inspection and use by othc."s as both a self-identi fying act and a socially bond­
ing process, following up news on the plethora of websites and blogs devoted to the iPod:
these few examples belong to a set of 'second-order' activities that expand the range that
constitutes the iPod projeet and shift its use from the individual to the social. This is
where iPod content is discussed, compared, anal)'sed or shown-off - where its existence
and meanings, and the consulllption thereof, are artieulated and made familiar. Swap ­
ping tunes, iPod DJing, sur veying each others' iTunes lib."ary connect the o bject and the
individual to something bigger. The legibilit)' of the object and its interfaces fa cilitates
these connections. The iPod becomes a node in a series of social vectors.
However, there is one crucial vector - between production and consulllption - that
 INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE i POD 479

19ies ami com­ is interrupted . In his book Empire if Siaos (1982), Roland Barthes descri bes Japanese
lrlds. Thus the packaging. The m ore elaborate the prod uct 'clothing', so the more tri via l is the final
on of aesthetic obj ec t of desire. Barthes goes on to equate thi s verve for packaging with a profusi on of
'instruments of transport' in Japan, noting how every citizen in the street car ries som e
ront, sans serif sort of bundle. Putting these tho ughts together, he concludes th at fabricated objects
le a visual clar­ m ust be 'precise , mobile, and empty'. Th er e is precision in the iPod 's minimalistic
)ns, anchors it design and mobility in its connecting to infi nite locations and const ella tions of use.
pleted by your M eanwhile , inside, deep inside, much of th e iPod remai ns enigmaticall)' empt)'. Its
)'OU can curate shi n)', resi st ant e xterior do es not afford entr)' points to its inner workings - there are no
1 environment screws, hinges or clips to give access. Equall)', product development at the Appl e design
Igagement and headquarters in Cup ertino , California, is undertak en in strict secrecy. 'Jon),' gives few
interviews and glosses over details of the working p r ocesses of his des ig n t eam. He and
-action begins. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs live ' typi ca l', ver y ordinar)' hom e lives tbat g ive no
nersion. Once possibl e clues to their inner motivation s as creative people.
al experience . Enthusiasts are left to ruminate on the for111 and func tionality of the next iPod or
nature for the iPhon e to be released via discussion we bsites. Cultural historia ns contemplate its phe­
1 the menu on nom enological meanings. The object get s fi lled out through loadi ng files and connecting
md is selected it into networks of d iscourse and use. Consum ers produce meaning for th emselves . Bu t as
luch, holding, ever in adva nced capitalism, these action s divert attention away from th e real connections
:hnolog)'. T he with productive base , whether tha t be its design in Cuper tino, California , or fina l assem­
so it turns the bly in Longhua, China. The iPod remain s the ultim ate personalizabJe aJienating object .
It digital tech­

:n it connec ts References
for this to be
specific play­ Barthes, Roland (1983) Empire cjSians, London : j onathan Cape.

Jundtracks to Credit Sui sse (2006) 'iPod: How Big Can It Get?' (report).

vitics -- C0 111­ Fergu son, K. (2006) 'The Anti-Pod: After Miehael Bull 's "!conie Designs: t he Appl e iPon "',

nces. A verve Senses &..Sociecy, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 359- 66.

ploading this
~c ifi e d sound Guy Julier
ven presence The Leeds Sc ho ol of Architecture, Land scape a nd Design, Leeds Metrop olitan Uni ve rsity
dual engage­
l1es the con ­
lments.
ged through
unes librar )'
,cially bond­
to the iPo d :
le range that
cial. This is
ts existen ce
iliar. Swap­
ject and the
:s facilitates

otion - that
 THE LC4 CH AIS E LO NGUE BY and of the e
its high lev('
LE COR BUSIER, PIERRE JEANNERET forming it ir
As a vis
A1\1 O CHARLOTT E PE RR IAND, 1928 teristics. Fo
and uoderto
studio io 19
soldier resti!
ier defined h
ious chairs h
chaise facilit
on a furn itUJ
new heights
19th centur'
immediate se
appeared in ,
purposes, io ,
pointed out
'Sur-repos', '
ier's depende
nineteenth-c
sense of mod ,
Material
The strikingl), modern-looking LC4 chaise longue "vas designed b), the French mod­ historiaos to
ernist architect, Le Corbusier, aided b), his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, with whom he - explained t
frequentl)' collaborated, and his assistant, Charlotte Perriand, who worked with him tecture. It is ,
on the development of most of his furniture designs (although that fact was not fully lar steel for Ü
acknowledged unti l late in her life). The chaise was originall)' conceived as a piece of used to li ok t
seating 'equipment' for Corb's Villa La Roche, a house built in Paris , in 1925 , for the were made of
Swis banker and art collector, Raoul La Roche. A later version of it appeared in the stered seat, a
arch itect 's Villa Church of 1928 / 9, while at the 1929 Salon d 'Automne in Paris it 'Nas designed for I
presented in an even more developed formo Designed, as were all Le Corbusier's fur­ industrial mal
niture designs, for mass production, it went through severa l evolutionar)' stages until it ier and his col
reached its final formo p ermitted thE
O n one level, however, the chaise has never been a single, fixed object. The Thonet the space it o
compan)' acquired rights to the design and produced it, albeit in limited numbers, in the phors aod aoa
earl)' 1930s. A Zurich firm, Embru-Werke , took over production in 1932. In 1940-1, chaise, which
during a visit to Japan, Charlotte Perriand created a handmade version of it in bamboo. achieved by ce
When the production rights were later transferred, firstly, to Heidi W eber in the late While th,
1950s, and thence to the Milanese furniture manufacturer, Cassina, in 1964, it acquired tional aod syrr
)'et another Jife. Subsequentl)' numerous cheap copies have appeared in the marketplace, extent. Inasm l
and the Vitra Museum has even produced a miniature version of it for collectors. an attempt to I
Given its ever changing nature and its rich ' life stor)" it is difficult to locate the defin­ er ial possessio
itive chaise longue. That is compounded b), the fact that it has become an ' iconic' object, of what they s,
one, that is, that, through its widespread dissemination through the mass media, has to sever ""hat
entcred the public's consciousness as an embodiment of the values of inter-war arch itec­ com fort and v
tural and design modernism - those, in particular, of a utopian model of social democracy enc)' in their O
 THE LC4 CHAISE LONGUE 481

and of the elimination of the distincti on between the public and private spheres. Indeed
its high level of symbolism distinguishes it from other, more quotidian, objects t ra ns­
forming it into what Roland Barthes has called a 'second leve! signifier ' or 'myth'.
As a visual, material and spati al object the chaise has a number of defining charac­
teristics. Formally, its curved silhouette represents the reclining human body. Perri­
and undertook studies of figures in different positions when she entered Le Corbusier's
studio in 1927, and 60 years later she explained the origins of the chaise by drawing a
soldier resting on the ground with his fe et raised against the trunk of tree. Le C orbus­
ier defined his furniture items as pieces of equipment, rather than furnishings . The var­
ious chairs he created represented the activities of working , conversing and resting, the
chaise facilitating the last and performing the role of a 'machine for resting in'. Draw ing
on a furnitur e typology which had Greek , Etr uscan and Roman origins, which reached
new heights of elegance in the 18th century, and w hich subsequcntly moved into the
19th century in the form ofThonet's rocking chairs and the deckchair, Le Corbusier 's
immediate sources included the 'Morris' chair (in 1922 a reclining chair ofthat type had
appeared in a sketch of a living-dining area) and recli n ing chairs used for health-giving
purposes, including those used in tuberculosi s sanitoria. Hi storians of the chaise have
pointed out that the architect was particularly inspired by a contemp orary chair, the
' Sur-repos', which was invented fo r th erapeutic purposes by a Dr Pascaud . Le Corbus­
ier's dep endence upon non-domestic models reinforced his deeply felt anxi eties about
nineteenth-century bourgeois domesticity and underpinned his com m itment to bring a
sense of modernity into his environments.
Materially the message was much the sam e. In 1929 Pe rriand - be!ieved by man)'
French mod­ historians to have provided much of the chai se's conceptual underpinning and detailing
,ith whom he - ex plained that 'Metal is playing the same role in fu rniture as concret e has for archi­
<ed with him tecture. It is a re volution '. Black-painted steel was used for the base, and chromed t ubu­
was not fully lar steel for the support frame . Rubber, springs and screws, purchased in a bazaar, w ere
as a piece of used to link the canvas of the first mode! to the fr ame , while the fo ot-rest and head-res t
192 5, for the were made of leather. In later versions the canvas was r eplaced by a black leather uphol­
Jeared in the stered seat, and pony- skin versions were also produced. For a sp ecial, one-off Chaise,
1 Paris it w as designed for the Maharaj ah of Indore, tiger ski n was employed . The predominance of
rbusier's fur ­ industrial materials contributed to the ' rational' machine aesthetic to which Le Corbus­
stages until it ier and his collaborators aspired. Also, most importantly, the m etal 's inherent strength
permitted the chair's designers to create a skeletal str ucture which would not disrupt
. The Thone t the space it occupied. Although Le Corbusier used mechanical and functional meta­
mbers, in the phors and analogies to define his furniture designs, the movement of the fram e 01' t he
. In 1940-1 , chaise, which enabled sitters to lie back with their feet in a raised position, was not
tin bamboo . achieved by cogs or levers but mere! y by the recliner's movements.
or in the la te While the materials used to con struct the chaise played a key pa r t in its fune­
~ , it acquired tional and symbolic role , its spatial aspirations worked in tension with them to a certa in
marketplace, ex tent . Inasmuch as its skeletal str ucture sought a high level of immateriality, there was
:tors. an attempt to reduce the chair to an abstraction, to, that is, an activit)' rather than a mat­
lte the defin­ erial possession or commodity. That ambition accorded with the designers ' abhorrence
onic' obj ect, of what they saw as the excessive materi alism of Victorian domesticity and their desir e
s media , has to se ver what had been perceived in the 19th century as the inevitable links between
var architec­ comfort and visual display. Above all, the modernists sought openness and transpar ­
11 democracy ency in their obj ects and their interiors. That was not to den y their occupants a leve! of
482 T HE L e4 e HA 1SE L oN GU E

comfort but it had to be compatible with their immaterial ambitions and thei r desire to M
create spatial continuity between the inside and the outside of their e nvironments . Such
was the portability and f1exibility of the chaise longue that it could be easily moved, as in
a sanatorium, from inside living spaces to open air balconies and veranda s.
Ultimately the visual, material and spatial characteristics of the chaise combine to
communicate the core messages of moderni sm oAs suggested above, however, the object
was never fixed but it evolved, rather, over time . Its meanings were necessarily trans­
formed , therefore, as it was modified and the context around it changed. It also sat at the
centre of a fundamental paradox. While it was overtly linked with modernist ambitions
ir remained, until recently, an élite object. Always produced in relativel)' small num­
bers , its m anufacture was complex and costly and it fulfill ed the taste requirements of
an intellectual minorit)'. Onl)' recently, now that it has been recognized that the social
agenda of modernism was unrealizable, and that the movement's main contribution was
a stylish, minimal aesthetic which sits alongside others in the mass consumer market­
place, has Corbusier/jeanneret/Perriand's chaise longue become, ironically, a popular
appendage of modern environments on a significant scale. As the author of an artide in a
2002 Good HOllsekeepin8 magazine explained, 'Hard to believe that such a contemporary­
looki ng piece is 75 years old'. It is Moth,
to write n
Pe nny Sparl<e 'Mother's
mother in
Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture, I<ingston University, London
Amy Taub
concerns a
and how it
face ofthe
Theo l
refuses to
just becau;
because so
history, in
critica1 Jan
protect thé
When
space folIo­
subjective (
potential f(
semiotic al
of the obje
space of en
those of val
suspect it t,
object has I
as a good p
it comesint
artworking
made to br
oftime.
:l their desire to MATERNAL OBJECT: MATRIXIAL SUBJECT
ronments. Such
;ily moved, as in
as.
aise combine to
lever, the object

.~,.
~cessari ly trans-
It also sat at the
-. · 1 tll
'~.i .~~
. .
ernist ambitions
vel)' small num­
requirements of
d that the social
It ,.
:ontribution was
nsumer market­
ically, a popular
of an a1,tiele in a
a contemporar)'­
It is Mother's Da)' 2008 in the United States. I am in New York when I finall)' sit down
to write m)' 'object lesson' which will be about an 'artwork' reviewed under the title
'Mother's Da)" b), film critic Am)' Taubin in Art Forum in October 2005. In it, the
mother in the film says 'My dear girl, ram so happ)' to have lived to see this day'. So is
Am)' Taubin. Tenuous as the connection seems, it allows me to talk about a film that
concerns a maternal object, an object belonging to and connected to someone's mother,
and how it functions as the site of and for matrixial trans-subjective connection in the
face of the loss it bears and displaces. 1
The object I want to discuss is, therefore , embedded in this artwork that, however,
refuses to be an object itself, and also cannot be reelaimed as an art object. This is not
just because the medium is video and the work is made b), a renowned filmmaker. It is
because something critical happened to art and its objecthood at a certain moment in
history, in art history, sometime during the 1960s, which took a while to filter i nto art
criticallanguage and into art history, stil! thinking its job was to deal with, focus on, and
protect the imaginary thing: the art object that is meant to be at the heart of al't histor)'.
When Western al't beca me a critical space, a theoretical space and propositional
space following the major reorientation of conceptual al't and became an invocation t o
subjective encounter through its use of new media, its objecthood was displaced and the
potential for al't to divest itself of objecthood without losing its specificity as a cl'eative ,
semiotic and affective econom)' was radicall} enlarged. The extent to which the 'end
of the object' was necessar)' fol' the beginning of an expanded potential for art to be a
space of enunciation and inscription of othel' affects, traces and subjectivities, including
those of val'ied minorities and differences, is still to be full)', or even crudel)', assertcd. I
suspect it to be the case. So for me, as a writel' on ar t, this challenge to think about the
object has been not at al! simple. Either I no longel' deal with (art) objects at all, since ,
as a good poststructuralist feminist, I now write about texts. Or the object , in so far as
it comes into view, is already framed by a meta-textualit)' of the new kind of work art­
artworking - now does. Al't ma)' wol'k with objects: found, used, fl'eighted, l'efl'amed,
made to bring in histor)', or to mark loss. Objects become the site of affects and r e lays
oftime.
484 MATERNAL OBJEC T: MATRIXIAL SUBJEC T

But there is another sense of object at pla)'. From a c1assicall)' Freudian ps)'cho­ labyr
ana l)'tical perspective, the object is theorized as the means b), which a drive achieves filme
the satisfaction which is its aim. Drives have aims and objects b), which the aim is meto ing s(
T he objects in question here might be the breast, the gaze, the voice, the mother's bod)'. our p
Such objects are c1earl)' not thing-objects; the)' are aIread)' a ps)'chic object: that is, a veil i:
representative of the unthinkable shapeless thing (lack) to which the object gives a kind herse
of thinkabilit)' and shape through which temporar)' substitutive relieffrom absolute lack is the
can be achieved. That would be the Lacanian model. Ps)'chic objects are furthermore it tral
illusor)' veils for what Lacan called the objet a, which are the unthinkable traces carved only (
into the scarred ps)'che of missing objects: ps)'chic objects known onl)' in their missing­ thereJ
ness ~ the breast as lost, the voice as lost, and so forth; hence these become the 'objects' a relie
of desire, that for which we long, hopelessl)', repetitiousl)', in vain. and te
This model has been modified b), feminist Lacanian revisions in which the Lacanian makel
absolute lostness of the objet a is revised as never completel)' lost for it is not fantasized hand",
as having been once completel)' possessed . Thus, outside an either / or logic, Bracha be the
L. Ettinger poses a 'matrixial objet a' that registers the undulating sense of a solace in the /lll
which having versus not having is replaced b), longing for a moment of transsubjective mid-31
connectivit)' and sharing that is never resolved into the phallic opposition of presence/ Fe
absence, but manages a )'ear ning for connectivit)' that can al so tolerate at the same time thralle
a sense of separateness and difference. This is vital as we think about rupture, about shocki
death or trauma and living with either. ter fili;
Thinking the object ps)'choanalyticall)' at another leve! is more trick)' but relates to whole
this insistence on the intersubjective. [n 'Object Relations' , developed b), Melanie Klein matic r
and her British followers, the object in object relations is in fact another subject, and the
point is that [rom earliest infancy the emerging human subject is involved in a form of T
intersubjective pla)' initiall)' with part-objects ~ breast, voice, gaze, and then with whole R
objects: discrete others, such as the Mother. These objects are not used, but are neces­ ir
sar)' means to realization of needs, posed as demands and thus caught up in the intersub­ el
jective interpla)'s b), which fundamental necessities of living organisms become subject rr
to ps)'chological freighting and weighting and imaginative investment. \1

Thus, even if a certain theoretical turn in critical thinking about art rejects the o
idea of art as objects of disp assionate contemplation and judgement and asserts instead h
that the)' operate as critical spaces of proposition and inscription, we can still track in
them the working of psychological, affective investment through 'objects' that function Taubin
as ps)'chic representatives through which the plays of connectivity and separation are journe:
t raced into cultural practice. ne)' bel
Let me shift from this abstruse beginning back to my focused case study: the objeet it, infu
in question. deaths,
In 2004, Chantal Akerman created an installation at the Pompidou Centre titled mother
To Walk Next to One's Shoelaces inside an Eropty Fridse. Wide!y regarded as on e of the lead­ traces (
ing experimental filmmakers ofher generation, the Belgian Akerman now has a gallery, Th
Marion Goodman, and her work is often presented in exhibitions where film and video mother
work can be presented under the expanded art rubric of installation. She has moved ber hOI
from the Warhol- and Godard-inspired independent film circuit to the artworld, where ious, le
alone it now seems that such formal explorations using time-based media can be housed . to her
Akerman's 2004 piece operates across two spaces. In the first a double spiral made memOl
out of transparent tuJle draws the viewer into and moves them out of a disorienting beca mi
 M ATE R N A L OBJ E e T: M A TRI X 1A L S U B J ECT 485

udian psyeho­ labyrinth of de lieate material aeross whieh streams, t oo fast to read and keep in foc us,
drive aehieves filmed word s. Once through this double spiral, the viewer eneounters another hang­
he aim is meto ing scrim of tulle on which is a projeetion of a page of a notebook and a small watercol­
nother's body. our portrait of a large-eyed young woman . So far no objects, onl)' illusions. Beyond this
)ject: that is, a veil is a double-proj ection on the wall of a 22-minute film featuring Chantal Akerman
'ct gives a kind herself and her own mother. The topic of their filme d exchange in a Brussels apartment
n absolute laek is the notebook itself, held in their hands, read and clebated in a real space . The book,
e furthermore it transpires, was made by and is about the large-eyed woman of the portrait. It is the
~ traces earved only object conneeted to hel' that remains to those who handle it. The objeet beeomes,
their missing­ the refol'e , a subjective trace, a bearel' of memory, a monument , tiny as it is, a m em orial,
le the 'objeets' a relíe, an inhel'itance, a thread linking an absent person to those present to eaeh other
and to us on the sel'een, a transport across time and space. As the film unfolds, the li lm ­
h the Laeani an makel' is asking her mother to read out loud for posterity the faint pencil marks 01' the
not fantasized handwritten notebook. It is written in Polish, and dates from 1920-2. It is revealed to
. logic, Braeha be the private diar y, wl'itten in her teens, of the reacle r 's mother, Sidonie Ehrenberg,
oof a solace in the filmmakel"s gl'andmother, who was killed in Auschwitz in 1942 when she was in hel'
:ranssubjeeti ve mid-30s.
n of presenee / For me, as for Amy Taubin, and I am sure for all of us who have foll owed , en­
the same time thl'alled, the long careel' of Chantal Akerman as a filmmakel' working through in often
rupture, about shocking and violent as well as te nder ways the idea of the mother and mothel'-daugh­
ter filiation, thi s installation work represents a culmination and a r etrospective key t o a
y but relates to whole body of work, now hinging that maternal theme direetly to a horrifying and trau­
Melanie Klein matie history of the Shoah .
ubject , and the
ed in a form of This diary, with ent.-ies written by three generations of women, is the
len with whole Rosetta Stone not just for this piece but for A kerman's cntire body of wol'k
but are neees ­ in film, installation, and performance. As the filmmaker explains in her
.n the intersub­ conversation with her mother, she is compe lled to speak beca use her grand­
Jecome subjeet mothel' and mother were silenced, first by the traditio nal Jewish culture in
whieh they were raised , then by the Holoeaust, which left one dead and the
art rejeets th e other 'broken'. It is this matern al bond - the pr imal connection - that gives
asserts inst ea d her formally austere work its emotional powe r. 2
!TI still traek in

s' th at funetion Taubin is suggesting that the entire film oeuvre of Akerman might be read as a long
separation are journey back to this object , that could not, however, become itself without the jour­
ney beeause of the pain, the trauma and the horror, th at hovered around it, haunted
udy: the objeet it, infused lives lived in the shadow of the Shoah, that vast and terrifying multitude of
deaths, that mom ent of the single, life-defining death for Nelly Akerman of her own
u Centre titled mother, she who would then mothel' two daughters , one of whom would glean the
)ne of the lead­ traces of these lives and confront them by making a film about this object, at lasto
w has a gallery, The object, the diar y, was som ehow preserveJ , passed on from the murde red
•film and video mother to her 18-yea r-old daughter on her own liberation in 1945. She cannot remem ­
She has moved ber how she, a traumatized adolescent, acquired this personal relie of her mother's an x­
rtworld , where ious, lonely adolescence. In it, hovvever, in 1945 she immediately inscrib ed a message
can be housed. to her dead mother, a message of he r own sense of love, los s and commitment to the
ble spiral made memory of h er mother. Given to, or found by Chant al Akerman as a ehild, the d iar y
f a disorientin g beca me a space for he r own third -generation feminine addition . She read her mother's
486 MATERNAL OBJECT: MATRIXIAL SUB,IECT

inscription to her lost mother , Akerman's never-known grandmother, the haunting obj ect ba
figure of loss present, however, in the diary through her self-portrait, and added her our unde
üw n love le tter to her bereaved mother in an act of childish compassion that surpasses In th
what we might ever expect fr om a child. Yet it r egi sters the way in which the matrix diary of
of transm itted trauma and ruptured connectivity fragilizes subj ectivities across time becomes
and generation, revealing reversals of the expec ted orders, hierarchi es and sequences of ing about
responsibility that usua J] y run from adult to child. Chantal Akerman's sister also found subjects t
the now tri-generational object and added her letter to her mother, doubling this gener­
ation al r eversal of careo
In the actual 'obj ect', the double- screened projection, the writing and what is writ­
ten are not shown. In stead , there is a period of silence, during which the m other is
fi lm ed reading thesc three supplem ents. As she t akes in what she is reading , tears flow Matri
L. Et
and she spontaneously turns and brushes with h er hand the face of her middle-aged
lowin
daughter, kissi ng her on the che ek. The m eaning of the gesture - a Warburgian pathos­
obj ecl
Jor mel- can onl y be 'ex plained' by the accompanying catalogue , by r evie wers telling us
L. Ett
what is written there. The viewer, however, without knowing the content, is witness Butlel
to a sud den punctum: the gestu ral register by a touch and a ki ss of the written gesture of 2 Amy
compassio n the object-diary literany bears into time, and history. 3 Brach
I m et Chantal Akcrman in ew York in tbe late 1990s. 1 had just seen her film and Ghent
installation D'Eesr at the Jewish Museum , ew York, and was intcres teu in the acknow­
ledgement offered there of the haunting trauma of the Shoah in her work, something
invisi ble in the 1970s when she was hailed first as a feminist filmmaker. She told me Griselda
th en she \Vas thinking abou t doing a piece about her grandmother \Vho was an artist Centre ter

and who had be en killed in Auschwitz . From the haunted landscape o f Eastern Europe Ar t, Hister
w ith its missing milli ons, she was moving in close to something intensely familial in this
larger hi story. This is the work she produced. As intimate and pathos-Iadened as most
of her work is formal! y structured and di spassionate, it hangs on the great rupture in
h istor)' that her own family lived out for which this one re maining object is the fragile
li nk. The obj ect, howeve r, fun ctions, as the installation insists with al! its screen s, veils
and proj ections, as the surface fo r the tex tual inscription of transgeneratio nal trans­
subjective matrixial affectivities : compassion from the daughters to their m others in
the fac e ofloss . The event of making che film about the object in its intense fragilit)', its
faintly traced words fading before their eyes , was an occasion not for handling a closed,
fi x ed , defined object. The object they held in their hands and discussed, only because it
was a link-trace, facilitated a mom ent of encounter with loss that in its intense affectiv­
ity allowed for the r em aking of a connect ion whose visible sig n was the pathos-gesture
of the strok 'el check and thC' kiss that passed between thc present and absent, the past
and presento This is what Bracha L. Ettinger m eans when she tries to describ e in both
aesthetic and psychoanalytical terms a supplementary subjec tive dimension she calls the
matrixial, when she thinks about art as a transport-station of trauma. 3 The matrixial
object is, therefore, not an obj ect in any sense I otherwise know. It is as deeply sub­
jective as the Kleinians imagine. It is as d eeply engaged with the dialectics of loss and
absence as the Lacanians insist. But it also suggests that the boundaries between sub­
ject /o bject (subjects and their obj ects), or presence / absence, ar e not absolute. Theyare
borderlines that becom e bo rder spaces which we begi n to sen se when aesthetically con­
fro nted with their workings. That is why certain m odes of contemporary art daring to
approach these borderspaces, opened and tinged by trauma, opened by means of post­
 e
M A TE R N A L O B J E T: M A TRI X 1A L S U B J E Te 487

the ha unting o bj eet based proeesses that m ake ar t the oeeasion for e n eo unte rs, ehange the te rms of
md added her our understanding of obj eets from th eir material to the psyehi c fun e tions .
that surpa sses In this case , the objeet for sueh tran sport of t rauma for Ch ant al Akerman was th e
eh the matrix diary of h er grandmother. In my ow n case, writing about it, Akerman's installation
!s aeross tim e beeom es a n obj eet-transport st ati on of trauma when 1 eneounte r it as an e vent o In vv rit­
:l sequ enees of ing about this, my obj eet lesson is perhaps that 1 am al w ays m ore involved with matrixlal
;ter also found subjec ts than with objee ts, even mate rnal obj eets.
ing this gener­

1 what is writ­ Notes

the mother is
Matrixial is a theoretical term elaborated over the las t 20 years by arti st-theorist Bracha
ing, tears fl ow
L. Ettinger. 1 will not explain the term, hoping instead that the usage wit hin the [0 1­
r middle-aged
lowi ng reading of an aes thetic process will instantiate its contribution to thinking about
lurgian pathos­
objects and subjects, aesthetically and psychoanalytically. For fur ther reading see Bracha
wers telling u s L. Ettinger (2006) Matrí xía/ Borderspace, edited by Brian Ma ssumi, with preface by Juclith
ent, is witnes s Butler and introduction by Griselda Pollock, Minneapoli s: Univcrsity ofMinne sota Press .
tten gesture of 2 Amy Taubin (2005) 'Mother's Day', Are Forulll O ctober 20 05.
3 Bra cha Ettinger (2000 ) 'Art as the T ransport-station ofTr auma', in Artworkina 1985-/ 999,
:n her film and Ghent : Lud ion.
in the acknow­
,rk, something
r. She told m e Griselda Pollocl<
l was an ar ti st Cen tre for Cultural Analy sis, Theor y an d Hi story (Ce ntreCATH l at the Sc hool of Fine
.astern Europ e Art, H istory of A r t , and Cultural Studies, U ni ve r sity of Leeds
familial in this
,dened as m ost
·eat rupture in
:t is the fragile
s sereens, ve ils
rational trans ­
eir mothers in
,se fragility, its
dling a close d,
Jnly be cause it
¡tense affec tiv­
::Jathos· gest u r e
bsent, the p ast
:scribe in b oth
)n she calls the
The matrix ial
as deeply sub­
ties of loss and
between sub ­
)lute. They are
thetically eon­
)' art daring to
mea ns of p ost -
 M ERMAID'S TEARS

Or
mil
eca
eri,
of t
wa~

duc
ti ve
voie
stat
Thi :
duC!
for t

lecti
an a
surf¡
ing s
taxi!
O n january 10, 1992, dishwasher- safe ca rgo spilled into the mid-Pacifi c. The accident by b
occuned over 1,000 miles eas t of japan and more than 2,000 miles west of Alaska. lated
Encountcring waves up to 40 fe et, an as yet anonymous ship traveling from Hong Kong is rel
to Tacoma, vVashington, had twelve 40 X 8 ft steel cargo containers wash overboard. At Ocea
some point during the ferocious winter storm, or soon after, th e cargo burst free from netw
its container- cum-murky-crypt and bobbed to the surface. With the assistance of the term
abrasive salinity and cold water density of the mid -Pacific, the cargo's cardboard pack­
aging soon cam e unglued to release its contents : around 29,000 "floatees"- plastic nov­ they'­
elties for bathtub fun such as red beavers, gr een frogs, blue turtles, and the most iconic upan
of the toys , the bright-yellow rubbe¡- duck made famou s by no less than Sesame Street's elude
Ern ie. D es tined for the bathtubs ofthe US, these to)'s mass produced for the Massachu­
setts based company Kiddie Produ cts (now The First Years Inc.) were lost at sea and
never made it to their intended market.
This "Jife aquatic" does not end on these stormy wate rs: floatees float . Plastic, the
"stuff of alchemy" for Roland Barthes, neither absorbs water, nor biodegrades. Esti­
mated to have traveled seven miles a day on ocean currents, the weathered cargo began
washing up on the shores of islands t hat fonu Ala ska's panhandle. Since 1992, beach­ lts irr
combers have coveted thc wayward floatees that landed at the Aleutian Islands, Puget alsa s
Sound, Gooch Beach in Maine, Indonesia, Australia, and which were predicted to arrive ted \\
on British shores in the summer of 200 7 (one was reported to have already landed in for m
Scotland in 2003). Had we an aerial view of the tens of thou sands of floatees riding high able i
on the currents of the mid-Pacific, the sublime scene may have prompted a compari­ 1
son to American artist Robert Smithson's earthwork in the Great Salt Lake, Spiral Jetty instn
(1970). Unlike the rock , mud, salt , algae, and rising water levels that compri se Smith­ Flaat,
son's 1,SOO -foot sculpture, the floatees' const ant drift precludes a static pattern . Imag­ b1)' di
ined as a "seawork" their appearance would be more akin to kinetic art, with the erratic ofbat
movement of each individual object dependent upon ocean currents. stuff
 M ERMAID'S TEARS 489

T he visuali zation of fl oatees takes far more numer ous forms than m)' analogy to arto
One is the popular image of nostalgia. The world press ran m any featu res on the gr eat
migrati on. Donovan Hohn's enthrall ing Harper's ar tiele on the float ees highlights a sy n­
ecdochic relation between how the flo atees are visually imagined and the ac tual mat­
erial floatees adrift . He notes that the figure of t he rubber duck has become the epitome
of the spill age, t he lone survivor . Eric Ca rle's c:h ildre n's book , l O Little Rubber Ducks,
was in spired by the accident and champions thi s duck 's tale . A paddling of lost rubber
ducks "braving" treacherous waves to desperately find land is, after aH, a happy narra­
tive r ipe with Disney/ Pixar anim istic overtones (a ll that 's missing is Hollyw ood actor
voice-overs and showboati ng cr itters wearing sunglasses) . The rubber duck 's iconie
statu s serves as a nostalgic image , a harkening back to an idyllic and hygienic childhood .
Thi s im age fossili zes connotation s of childhood; to depic t a decr epit and sun-bleached
duck is to sour thi s sentimentality and underm ine the fr ozen image of child hood bli ss
for the adult worl d .
Whil e the con stant image of the sur vivor duck works to preserve an imagined col­
lective memor y, another form of vi sualization through which the flo atee is known is of
an altogether different value system: as a plotting instr ument for computer-simul ated
surface cu r rents. Oceanographers Curti s Ebbesmeyer and James Ing raham bega n track­
ing sightings to simulate the path of ocean curre nts as well as raise awareness of t he vas t
toxins of commercial debris that pollute the Ear th 's ocea n s. Floatee sightings , reported
: accident by beachcombers , help plot their drift routes. Their exac t physical location· calcu­
)f Alaska. lated, mapped , char ted- enables the simul ation of patte rns of movem ent . The fl oatee
ong Kong is represented as a coordinate for inform ation visuali zation . Ingr aham of the National
board. At O ceanograph ic and Atmos pheric Admini stration, in collaboration with Ebbes m eyer 's
free from network ofb eachcomb er s, recorded coor di nates of doc umented sightings into a compu­
1ce of the ter modeli ng system know n as the ocean surface current si mulator (OSC UR s).
Jard pack­ Beachcombing fa the r and son duo, Dean and Tyler O rbison , shared the fl oatees that
lastie nov­ they 've gathered between 1992 and 2004 at the 200 4 Beachcomber Fair in Sitka . ' Based
lost icon ie upon the Orbison recoveries, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 's drift simulator progr am con­
'me Street's eludes that the
~assae hu ­
at sea and data ind icate that fl ocks of toy s compl eted four orbits of the [North Pacific
Subtropica l] Gyre . The first (two years) may be fas ter than the latter th ree,
'lastie, the becau se the toys developed holes but continued floating full of water buoyed
¡des. Esti­ by the low specifi c gravity of their pl ast ic. 2
Irgo began
12, beaeh ­ Its image, w hile si multaneously preserving affective va lu e for popular im agination , is
ílds, Puge t also stat istical, an analytic, a survey instrument for cyberca rtogr aphy. Like buoys out fi t­
,d to arri ve ted with transponde rs for ocea nograph ic research , or sealife tagged and satellite- tracked
, landed in for m igration patte rn s, the floatee, too , fun cti ons as an infor mational image and valu­
riding high able instrument for sc ientific research .
, compari ­ The sm iling duck's bill of (failed) commodity-for m cuteness and ocea nographic
Spiral Jetty instrumentati on offers yet another image and tiny obj ect-ty pe for furth er considerat io n .
:ise Smith ­ Floatees ar e a fossil fu el-based synthetic polymer that deg rades poorly and is incredi­
:ern. lmag­ bly diffi cult to recyele . The familiar sm ile becom es a cruel smirk as the hygienic obj ect
the erratie of bathtub pl ay and affection reveals its ugly chemical constitution . The tons of plastic
stuff that dots our ever yday world promises d isposability in its cheap g ui ses whil e the
 I
1

-- -- -
.
t•

490 MERMAlD'S TEARS

recycl ing of plastics proves laborious and expensive, degradation time is slow, landfills comman
are severely impacted by the growing mass, and incineration ma)' release harmful toxins ing partie
into the atmosphere. Quack, quack: plastics are viciously durable. Hohn reaches a con­ flounder.
c1usion not too dissimilar from Barthes. Wher e Barthes scorns plastic for its imitative reminder
banality, ubiquity, transformative and leveling qualities, Hohn points to its uncanny fan­ a ur plate~
t asy capabilities as a broken promise of disposability that has helped "to create a culture
of wasteful make-belie ve, an economy of forgetting."3 A sun-bleached toxic duck ma)'
serYe as a reminder; one not bound to nostaJgic tones of childhood and make-believe
alone, but to the responsibilities of sustainability and our continued c ut-throat over­
dep endence on fo ssil fuels. TheiJ
The floatee's object lesson resides in its mermaid's tears. The North Pacific Sub­ beach
tropical Gyre, 800 miles off the coast of California, goes by another name, the Eastern Do tf
beach
Garhage Patch or Great Garbage Patch. The w eak wind patterns and sJuggish rotat­
urban
ing currents create a vacuum sucking in f10ating debris. Estimated to be the size of the
2 Curti!
slate of Texas and invisible on the surface, this oceanic landfill spat out the following
ersa leJ
waste for Charles Moore of the AIgalita Marine Research Foundation: "polypropylene 3 Dono'
fishing nets , a drum of haza rdous chemicals, a volleyball . half-covered in barnacles,' a er's Ma
cathode-ray television tube, and a gallon of bleach 'that was so brittle it crumbled in our 4 Cited ·
hands.">4 Plast ic rubbish, on account of being so Iight , rides the surface of the circular
currents for years as it slowly disintegrates into increasingly smaller pieces. The term
"mermaid's tears" describes the results of the photodegradation process that affects Raiford I
petroleum based products: sun light assists in breaking plastic into tiny shards to Iitter Departmen
the Earth's oceans. Art s, Cultu
'
The plastic tear is also reminiscent of another: the famous "Keep America Beauti­
fui" Ad Council pollution -prevention advertising campaign of the early 1970s wherein
a Jone Native American sheds a mournfu 1 tear at the sight of vast pollution and the irre­
sponsibility of industrial "progress." The US telev ision campaign debuted on the first
Earth Day on March 21, 1971 and included Hollywood actor "Iron Eyes Cody" (actu­
aH)' ltalian-American, Espera De Corti, 1904-1999) as the unnamed Native Ameri­
can who paddles his canoe across a contaminated riverbank and comes ashore. There he
is greeted by "litter-bugs" mindlessly tossing trash out of their speeding cars that lands
al hi s moccasin -c1ad D et. The "Crying lndian" ad, as it is known, bore the anti-litter
slogan of the era: "People start pollution, people can stop it". Iron E)'es Cody's oriental­
ist and exoticist appearance- depicted as tribal, indigenous, noble, more spiritual and
" in touch w ith nature" than "modern man," positioned as both out-of-synch with and
victim of first-world industrial modernization- served as an historical (one might add,
genocidal) and sentimental reminder for the ecology movement of that era.
In the television campaign from 1971 the Iitter-bug who flings trash out of their car
and the ominous factor), belching fumes into the air are portrayed as identifiable. The
'people who star t pollution' within the free -market tides of global capital aren't as easil)'
pinned down. The tear of the 21st century is petroleum based. It neither falls from
human eyes, nor conjures the same sense of preventionist ideals. It is a minuscul e object
drifting across oceans, far away from Jand-Iocked eyes. Regardless of its size, mermaid's
lears are chemical pollutant pellets-acting like a sponge for non-water-soluble chem­
icals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, known to contain high levels of toxicity, as well
as dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane aka DDT- that interrupt the feeding-chains ofthe
Laysan albatross (whose chicks starve to death from their steady diet of plasti c) and are
 MERMAID'S TEARS 491

',Iandfills common 1)' found lodged in the tissue of jellyfish, a filter-feeder who sub sists by strai n­
¡fuI toxins ing particles from the sea and common food source for North Pacifie cod, herring, and
hes a con­ flounder. The floatee's state of slow photodecomposition may we1l be an indigestible
; imitative reminder to u s as its chemical basis is absorbed in other sealife resting batter-fried on
canny fan- our plates next to chips.
oa culture
duck may
ke-believe Notes
lroat over­
The image that I've used for my object lesson is of the Orbisons' floatee collection. Are thc
beachcombers who gather the debris of free-market tides 21 st-centur y hi storiographers?
acific Sub­
Do they challenge Walter Benjamin's 19th-century Aaneur and rag- picker as isolatcd
he Eastern
beachfronts signify the expansive cultures of global capitalism far better than modernity's
;gish rotat­ urban spaces? Behind the angel ofhistory's wings does a decomposing duck drift?
size of the 2 Curtis C. Ebbe smeyer (2004) 'Beachcombing Science from Bath Toys', www.beachcomb
=following ersa lert.org/RubberDuckies.html (Much 1, 2008).
yprop)'lene 3 Donovan Hohn (2007) 'Moby-Duck: 01', The Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood', Ha rp ­
arnacles,' a er's MaBazine, januar y 2007, pp . 39-62, p. 61.
lbled in our 4 Cited in Hohn , p. 46.
:he circular
;. The ter m
that affects Rai for d Guin s
rds to Iitter Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Stud ies & Consortium for Digital
Arts, Culture and Technology (cDACT), State University of New York, Stony Brook
rica Beauti­
70s wherein
Lnd the irre ­
on the first
:ody" (actu­
ltive Ameri­
re. There he
rs that lands
1e anti-litter
1y's oriental­
spiritual and
¡eh with and
le might add,

It of their ca r
1tifiable. The
ren't as easily
Ler falls from
Luscule object
:e, mermaid's
;oluble chem­
xicit)', as well
;-cha ins of the
,astic) and are
 THE MUSEUM OF CORNTEMPORARY ART

[ have been an avid collector since [ was young. [n grammar school, [ amassed a large
collection of comic books. By the time 1 finish ed high school, 1 had left them behind­
except for my almost complete run of MAD comics-and added insects, which [
mounted on pins in a Cuban cigar box (this was before 195 9), LP jazz records, books, Th
including sorne relatively rare volumes whose value [ was unaware of at the time, and concep
stamps, which [ systematically mounted in my huge Master Global album. that \VI
During my college years and for a long time after that 1 was preoccupied with other found 1
activities-studies, travel, and finding m yself. 1 continued to buy books, but mainly to resoul"(
read and not to possess as special objects. While a senior at Columbia, I discovered the brated
New York galleries and spent much of my time looking at arto My parents were modest 01
art collectors and landed a few prizes, including a watercolour by the former Russian to builc
Futurist, David Burliuk, and a plaster bust oE a newsboy by the African American sculp­ nir sto!
tress Augusta Savage . Whil e growing up, [ absorbed the visual influence of those and Kong, .
other works in my parents' house, on ly learning years later that a few of them were of and otl
significant cultural worth. perfu rr
During the late 1960s, I started to purchase art myself, particularly from a local truck \
deal cr in Washington, OC , whose shows were extremely eclectic. 1 enjoyed the exercise poned
of aesthetic judgment that is at the core of art collecting and recall the moment when 1 conterr
first wished that I could be a major collector like Joseph Hirshhorn and buy enough art travers
to fill m)' own museum. T his goal seemed out of reach until the epiphany around 1990 versity
that led to my founding the Museum of Corntemporary Art in my office at the Univer­ ars are
sity of Illinois, Chicago. r was inspired by the chance discovery in a gutter of a small on sou'
ouzo bottle that was housed in a frame of plastic caryatids and capped with a top in the and unl
shape of an Ionic column. 1 What struck me about the bottle was the delicious impro­ MI
priety of tran sposing the grandeur of Greece's architectural heritage to a smalJ object 1assu rr
that would have ended up as api le of glass shards and broken plastic had I not seen sorne and CUI
hidden value in it. inelude
 THE MUSEUM OF CORNTEMPORARY ART 493

;sed a large
1 behind­

s, which 1
·ds , bo oks, The acqui sition of the ouzo bottle and a prolonged ex posure to its aura led to m)'
: time, and conception of a new corntemporary aesthetic that gave visual m eaning to myriad objects
t hat would othen vise b e rudely treated as k itsch . Having embraced this aesthetic, 1
with other found myse lf in a territor y th at belonged t o no one el se and rea lized that w ith modesl
t mainly t o resources 1 could begin collecting corntemporar y objects for a new m useum that cele­
overed the brated them and proclai med t heir vvorthiness to the entire world .
ore mo dest Over the years 1 have had innum erable adventures in di sparate p laces as I set out
er Russian to build a coll ectio n of corntemporary art o I have t raipsed through flea m arkets, souve ­
ica n sc ulp ­ nir stores, and junk shops in Mexico City, Singap ore , N ew York, Mia mi Beach, Hong
. those and Kong, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Sydney, and numerous other ci ties. h om thesc
·m were of and other place s 1 have ret r ieved m ini ature chairs made from pop cans , Ei ffel Tower
perfu me bottles, stereotypical Chinese couples that were m ade in Japan , a wooden
om a loca l truck w ith a doll-like Commandante Marcos, and Red Guard fi g urines that were pur­
le exercise ported to ha ve been created during Chin a's Cultura l R evolution but were most likely
ent w he n 1 contemporary fakes m ade in Shenzen . In the course of discover ing these things, 1 have
:nough art traversed the vas t under belly of glo bal m at eri al culture and learned more than any uni­
)und 199 0 versity could t each me about the things that people around the world live with . Schol­
le Univer ­ al-Sare only no w beginning to di scover th ese objects as th ey publish books and articles
of a sm all on souvenirs and popular culture but for th e most part they have gone undocumented
top in th e and untheori zed. 2
,us impro ­ My rem edy for this situation was eleva ting my colJection to the st atus of a museum.
1all obj ec t I assumed the role of director and have invited colJaborators to write about the obj ects
scen sorne and curat e exhibitions with them . As part of a university course on high and low art, I
included a field trip to the museu m in the syllab us. Students m ade the trek across the
494 TH E M U SE U M OF CORNTEM PORARY ART

hall from the art history department's seminar room to my office, where they spent al
time viewing the collection. Subsequently they wrote papers about it. Several students
asked to curate exhibitions and did so with the concomitant fanfare of official openings
and in one case a catalogo
1 was also invited to ex hibit objects from the collection at Sarah Lawrence College,
where 1 presented a small group of anifacts on a shelf in an otherwise empty room.
On one of th e pristine white wa lls were huge black sans serif letters that spelled out
"Museum of Corntemporary Art," making imnic reference to the graphic style of the
Museu m of Modern Art. Accompanying the exhibition was a lengthy mix of corntem­ Victc
porary music by Paul Ll oyd Sargent, a sound and video artist. Proles
The museum status has been meaningful in a number of ways. First, it has facilitated
my ongoing performance as director and enabled me to walk the fine line between pre­
senting the collection as a witty commentary on museum practice, while also actively
calling attent ion to the obj ects as icons of social significance. Second, the objects, when
p laced in an institutional setting, have mediated a set of social relations with students,
colleagues, and the public that would not otherwise have taken place. For the sev­
era l students who curated exhibits from the collection, the museum provided a valu­
able learning experience as it did for others who wrote short class papers in which they
selected particular objects for discussion. Third, the collection has stimulated others to
look for related objects that they could contribute to the museum, thus causing them to
reflect on what might be worth including and what might noto Fourth, the collection­
cum-museum resulted in a book, Cultu re is EvelYwhere, that consisted of several schol­
arly essays and a collection of beautifully photographed dioramas by Patty Carrol!. As
one of the essayists, 1 introduced my alter ego, the critic Herm ione Hartnage l, organ­
izer of numerous exhibitions including !he Tran sgressive Tattoo and the Third World Bottle
Cap. Hartnagel also wrote the lead essay for a student-curated exhibition lsland HoPpin8
and curated her own show, "Operation French Freedom," as a response to the American
invasion of Iraq. H ar tnagel has become part of the museum's history as 1have pres ented
it at several conferences and is now inscribed in a narrati ve that is simultaneously seri­
ous and tonguc-in-cheek.
The cornt emporary aesthetic is based on a dialectical premise that the objects to
which it applies are simultaneously socially m eaningful and visually pleasurabl e. To
treat such objects simply as icons of social value would be ponderous, while considering
them solely as inco nseque ntial but pleasurable examples of mater ial culture would be
frivolous. When recognized as both, they embody both resonance and wonder, to use
"tephen Grecnblatt's phrase. The Museum of Corntemporary Art can also take its place
among other museUInS such as Clacs Oldenburg's Mouse Museum and Marce! Brood­
thaers's Museum of Eagles. It is part of a discourse that raises questions about how mus­
eums endow their collection s with meaning and as such it plays a vital role in currcnt
aesthetic debates.

Notes

1 describe the incident and its implications in more detail in my essay "Culture is Every­
where: An Introduction to the Museum of Corn-temporary Art," in Victor Margolin
 THE MUSEUM OF CORNTEMPORARY ART 495

ore they spent and Patty Carroll, Cultu re is Everywhere: The Museum <if Corntemporal/ Are (Munich, Berlin,
:veralstudents London, New York: Pres te! Verlag, 2002).
ncialopenings 2 Two pionee ring works are Ruth B. Phill ips, Tra di na Identi ties: The Souveni r in Native No rth
American Al·t from che Norchcas t, 1700-1900 (Seattle: University of Washington P res~ and
rence College, Montreal: McGill·Queen's University Prcss, 1998 ) and Ruth B. Phillips and Chrblopher
B. Steiner (eds.), Unpackina Cultu re: Are and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds
empty room.
( Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia Press, 1999).
lat spelled out
Jic style of the
ix of corntem­ Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History, Un iversity of I1linois, Chi cago
t has facilitated
: between pre ­
le also aetively
: objeets, when
with stude nts,
:. For the sev­
'ovided a valu­
, in whieh they
dated others to
ausing them to
the eolleetion­
f several sehol­
ttvJ Carroll. As
rtnagel, organ-
Jird World Bottle
1 IsJand Hopping
J the American
have presented
ltaneously seri­

t the objeets to
Jleasurable. To
üle considering
lture would b e
wonder, to u se
so take its place
Maree) Brood­
tbout how mus­
ro)e in eurrent

:::u lture is Every­

Victor Margolin
 NO THING TO REGRET ...
respec
and ur
affair,
and th
which
Fe
aHy to
fui lite
wasne
to play
Marx!:
still go
ous, ae
WestII
before
It
ethical
such ce
historil
ginal ti
Fot a young left-wing academic in the late 19605 and early 1970s, as for almost anyone tioning
else for that matter (but that both is and is not the heart of the question: the part that is speakir
hardest to acknowledge - that one is, in al! too many respects, like almost anyone else), and ane
it was desirable to have an object in a world filled with lost objects; or, even better for demicl
those who had already lost some, an object of loss. That, 1 suppose, is part of what it was inside a
to grow up in the society of the spectacle just at the moment it was first named as such, a matte
already an intellectual and a fashion victim, both of which 1hope 1have remained. of a spe
Once 1 began to size up the political terra in 1 began to envy a whole number of dif­ Or
ferent individuals for the way in which their loss or their attachment to lost objects frame,
lo cated them so fluidly, so t ragically or even comically, in the greater flow of histori­ was ine
cal events to which we were inclined to believe that we belonged. 'Men (sic) make their story ir
own history ... hic Rhodus, hic salta' and so forth; so if the Stalin-Hitler pact or the ing the
suppression of the Hungarian uprising and Khrushchev 's not ver y secret speech or the way, th
deposition of Dubcek was your object of loss, Communism your lost object and 'actu­ decrepi
ally existing socialism' your melancholic introjection of any one or any combination of to unfo
these, you were indeed in clover. anchor:
You had something to talk about, to lament, a source of guilt as of ostentatious self­ WI
negation and, moreover, new ways of thinking about history and the history of objects 1 might
in the commodity system that was and is oUl- natural habitat. deludec
That's why Maoism wa ' such a stroke of luck for me: it was the best possible far­ seems J
away thing, the phantasm-object-critique of the whole baggage of the West from its old fallen il
to its new d crepitudes, from its capitalist excesses to its ageing Communists in con­ its curr
stant sorrow. For a number of years after the defacing of the Ming tombs in China, its imm
some time in 1966, that grandly traditional, revolutionary vandalism sufficiently rep ­ alive fn
resented my own feelings towards the hallowed and stifling mellowness of the univer­ take in
sity, its intellectual vacuity, and it also stood for something outside the frame, my own ,"vas cm
frame and the framing metaphors of the worn-out narcissism of unending historical was the
 N O T HIN G T O R E G R E T . " 497

respect - an attitude that m y approximate generation is credite d with having affronted

and undermined - I ho peo Yet even as I became involved r could envision the end of the
affair, that r would sort out my life according to desires that had yet to na m e them selves ,
and that this singul ar event would tu r n out to be transicnt and an ego -id eal, if one for
which attachment could never quite fade away.
For it w as not the case that I would ever dare to step too far out of the frame , actu­
ally to go to China; importantly, as this timidity was also a talisman against the d read­
fuI literalism that had led to the hung-over m elancho ly of the moment; '.. . hic salto'
was never an injunction on which r was prepared to stake too mucho Rathe r I was ha ppy
to play it all for the nth time, too, as faree . Pr ovided , that was, I could learn to read the
Marx ist ca non, at least try to stand up fo r social justice and against imperial ism and
still go clubbing, as w ell as attending plenty of vemissa8es on the London scene, sen su ­
ous, aesthetically radical soirées at the Arts Lab in Drury Lane, eat rice and peas in the
West Indian dives of W estbourne Gro ve and stilllanguish in fascination and velvet loons
before the Piero di Cosimo in the National Gallery.
It \ovas hardly necessary to m ake a strong argume nt for liv ing out these social and
ethi cal catachreses if the work of the avant-garde in art as in sex, for example, could as
such conjugate with the work of politics as well as the super ve ning conception of the
!l hi storie social class, the working class , as both at once central, foundational and mar­
ginal to the socius as a whole. This argum ent al!owed for a fl ex ible and tactica l posi­
almost anyone tioning, a speaking for and a spea king from, of what w e we re soon to come to call the
the part that is speaking subj ect or, later on , the performance of the subject. To be on o ne 's own sid e
st anyone els e), and another, and for this to be as if a viable universal or a proper judgem ent was, in aca­
even better fo r demic terms for ex ample , to have both a discipline and its critique; or in politics to be
t of what it was inside and outside the revolutionary class at the same t ime or by turns . This was neither
named as su ch, a matter of sincerity nor its opposite , but of a form of general desire to be el sewher e and
:mained. of a specific desire to be just one - in the Cartesian mo de .
number of dif­ O r you can begin to see that this question of being both in the [¡-ame and out of the
to lost object s frame , both at the heart of the matter and at the same time the m atter 's supplement,
flow of histor i­ was indeed altogether the heart o f the matter ; not an either / or, but a suspense stor y, a
:sic) make the ir sto ry in suspense. As if, again, one was already, always a ghost of Marx or Freud , ghost­
tler pact or the ing the future's script for one's self out of the theoretical deferr als yet to com e . And , in a
:t speech or the w ay, thi s w as just as wel! , as it turned out t o make for som ething different from the old
)ject and 'actu­ decrepitudes and opened the space for a lot of inteHectual ad ventures that might be able
combination of to unfold vvithout a prop er starting point or having too often to stop and throw dow n an
anchor : even if aH too many of them w ere to freeze in the institutional ice of a d iscipline .
stentatious self­ When 1 daydream about what the object-like texture of al! this might be , ho w
stor y of object s 1 might make a sy mbol for all or some of this, out of something illusory, impossible ,
deluded and desiring , sometimes 1 think that I would like it to be a painting. At fi rst this
:st possible far­ seem s right becau se it is possibl e the idea that 'painting is dead', which has risen and
lest from its o ld fall en in dramatic tums over the last 30 yea rs of art theory and criticism , in p art owes
TIunists in con­ its currency t o these unfolding processes themselves, to the putting of substancc , in all
)mbs in China , its immateriality, beyo nd the fram e . But clearly painting is far from dead and, indced , is
iufficiently r ep ­ alive from its very first r ecorded appearances, in a still triumphant objecthood. Thc mis­
s of the uni ver ­ t ake in thinking painting w as dead is that the theoretical discovery of outside -the -fra m e
frame, my o wn was confused with the notio n that what is inside is ther e fore limited when , of course, it
1ding histori ca l was the inside 's own, elliptical illimitability that m ade su eh a kn owledge poss ible in the
 i - ---- --

498 NO THING T O REGRE T . ..

first place. So a painting, an easel painting, should do for the objec t that I want - but
that is far too easy.
It's far too easy to get awa)' with a category and a near infinity of single parts, so I must
look for something more limited, a reminder like Milton's olive leaves that I might feel and
hold and sense, a sharp reminder of the kitsch of wanbng as well as its oceanic potentiaI.
Hand in pocket, I tr y to rediscover myself fingering some smooth, shiny little
object, with aIl the kitsch)' fe el of mass culture , imitation craft, like the mater ial of so
ma ny of my studies and reAections yet to come. lean follow the form s, ripples like the
rays of a sun , the outline of a shape which must be that of a fa ce, a profile, and on the
other side so rn e coarser metal, cheap and rough with a badly attached pin which is crum ­
bling loose. The pin pricks my finger and 1 have to lick the bloody trickle. But that's why
it's in m)' pocket, it might have fall en off in the hurly burl)' of a demonstration, and I
loved it ver )' much, my Mao badge , my first one, far too much to lose . Though where it
is today, I have no idea.

Adrian Rifl<in
Department Art, Goldsmiths Col lege, University of Lon don

Perhap:
matic s'
is a con
picture
tively sa
blel) or"
they mu
1m"
stood. !
small SI·'
pixel as
a pixel i.
In I
point. B
a questil
tiallya :
merely;
sion am'
ThE
'atomic'
for the ¡
becomil
With ci
"pixel ft
and soli,
ThE
mt - but PIXEL

so 1must
It fee! and
tential. Fig: I. ...! Fig:lI.
-- -.- -----"-'= -, ­

in)' ]jttle .l
:rial of so O .94 0rY 4
s like the J 24./ 86'
nd on the 2 4 .1/.9 2
1 is crum­
3 54 28 4
hat's why
ion, and 1
4 63,9 68
J). 7.1880
1 where it
S ' ...
¡¡ l 7 8.5 68

i
7 843.5 8
8
8..94 Ó 4
.9
..9 4 O) O
J'~.ÁnM"""c.

Perhaps not surpris ingly the word "pixel" is as devoid of historical reference as the infor­
matic systems supporting it; the word dates in English to the early to mid 1960s. "Pixel"
is a contrac tíon of the term "picture element" via the word "pix," slang for "pictures." A
picture elem ent, or p ixel, is the smallest atomic unit of an image that has been quantita­
t ively sampled. It is essentially a visual atom, from the Greek atamos m eaning "not cutta ­
ble" or "ind ivisible." Atoms are uncuttabl e, but they are also, from Epicurus, invisible, as
they must exist below the threshold for humans to discern one atom from another.
Invisible and uncuttable , these are the two modes in which the pixel has been under­
stood. From the first derives the dominant notion : a pixel is akin to something like a
small swatch of color, barely visible to the naked eye, if at al!. This is the definition of the
pixel as a little sq uare. From the second der ives tbe less dominant but still crucial not ion:
a pixel is not simply a little square, it is at the sa me time a numerical value , a sample poi nr .
In Aristotle's Physics the di fference is between monas, a unit or unity, and stiBme, a
point. 80th monas and stigm e "vere uncuttable for Aristotle, but m onas was fundamentally
a ques tion of arithmetic, while stigm e was a question of geometry. Thus while it is essen­
tially a singular m athematical value, in its representational modality the pixel is never
merely a point . The pixel is a little dot (or square), because it has both a width dimen ­
sion and a height dimensiono
The pixel is to the digital image as the fram e is to the cinematic image: both are
'atomic' m edia, that is, media entities that are uncuttable in t hemselves , but ex ist solely
for the purpose of constructing larger entities. 8 0th are subperceptual (inv isible), onl)'
becoming visible through a fusion of many similar subelements into a larger ' image '.
With cinema thi s is call ed flicker fu siono With digital images it is something more like
"pixel fusion" whereby discrete dots or squares dissolve together to create Iines, curves
and solids. Technologies like anti-aliasing help in this process.
The tendency to conceive of pixel s as little squares-or alternately little dots-runs
500 PIX E L

righl through 19th- and 20th-century technological and aesthetic practice. The little It;
square appears prominentl)' in the work of Gerrit Rietveld, Bart van der Leck, Vilmos Li
H u"~zár, and Piet Mondrian, but also in minimalism and color field painting b), Ellsworth to
Kell)', Sol Lewitt, and Agnes Martin. In the earl)' 1970s grids suddenly re-enter the art W
historical discourse with articles b), Rosalind Krauss and John Elderfield, having pre­ lit
violl sly been seen in discussions around Renaissance perspective and linearit)'. But this an
is not the beginning of the story; no, that must gesture even further back to the dotted [N
color mixtures of pointillism, to the more primitive form-making of mosaics, and th,
indeed to tapestries and the grids of little squares produced by al! manners of pictorial re,
w eaving. Running in parallel to this are dot-based image technologies such as the half­
tone dot of William Fox Talbot or the fluorescent dots of the cathode ra)' tube.
Yet to understand the complementar)' tendency, the pixel as an uncuttable, genetic This sm
sample point, it will help to return to the 18th century. Blind from a )'oung age, the Touch,n
celcbrated Cambridge mathematician Nicholas Saunderson excelled at intense thought, ele. Cols
particularly in the field of algebra. He developed a keen interest in the work ofNewton, digital rr
who was at Cambridge with him and preceded him in the Lucasian professorship (other on's 'nigl
luminaries ¡ike Charles Babbage and Stephen Hawking would hold the same position). pable ab,
Saunderson was as wel! versed in Newton's recent optics research as he was in his work symbols
on ph)'sics and material science. "It will be matter of surprise to many," his Cambridge a small h
colleagues acknowledged, referencing Saunderson's blindness, numerie<
bers") at
that our Author should read Lectures in Optics, discourse on the Nature of leve!. "It
Light and Colours, explain the Theory of Vision, the Effect of Glasses, the wrote hi;
Phaenomena of the Rainbow, and other Objects of Sight: but if we consider and set d,
that this Science is altogether to be explained by Lines, and subject to the by WritÍl
Rules of Geometr)', it will be eas)' to conceive that he might be a Master of Toda
these Subjects. arranged
(Anon. 1740: vi) point wa:
was not i
Saunderson held forth fluidly on such topics, although he did not have perceptual know­ achieved
ledge of optical sight. Thef
The mystery of Sallnderson 's abilities la)' in a special device. 1 defer to John Colson, 011 the on

Saunderson's immediate Sllccessor, who in the essay 'Dr. Saunderson's Palpable Arith­ (dots in ;
metic Dec)'pher' d' describes a small handheld tool designed and built b), the blind but, on ti
professor. sample Pi
Whi
His Calculating Table was a smooth thin Board, something more than a Foot typewrit
square, raiscd upon a smaU Frame so as to lie hollow; which Board was divided uouslye¡
b r a great numher of Equidistant parallcl Lines, and by others as ruany, at right ning offl
Angles to the fo rmer. The Edges of the Table were distinguished by Notches, in the fi¡
at about half an Inch distance from one another, and to each Notch belonged (lAS) in
five of the aforesaid Parallels; so that every square Inch was divided into an on an os
Hundred little Squares. At every Point of Intersection the Board was per­ pixel wa
forated b), small Holes, capable of receiving a Pin; for it was b), the help of way as t(
Pins, stuck up to the Head through these Holes, that he expressed his Num­ hofer bel
bers. [ ... ] A great Pin in the Center of the Square (which, and no other, was their nel
alwa)'s its Place) was a Cypher, or O, and therefore 1 shall call it by that Name. of the el
 ~j~a Facultad ele B=lla~i~es 1 PIXE L 501

·e. The little Its chief Office w as, to preser ve Order and Distance among hi s Fig ures and
.eek, Vilmos Lines. This Cy pher was always present, except only in the Case of an Unit;
by Ellsworth to express which the great Pin in the Center wa s changed into a little one .
enter the art Whe n 2 was to be expressed, th e Cy ph er w as restored to its Place , and th e
, havi.l1g pre­ little pin was put just over it. To express 3, the Cyph er remained as before,
rity. But thi s and the little Pin was advanced into th e upper Angle on th e right Hand.
to the dotted (Nu mbers four through nine are ach ieved in a similar fa shion] . And thu s all
mosaies , and the Digits wer e provided for, by an easy and un iform Not ation , wh ich might
-s of pictorial r ead il y enough be apprchended and distinguished by the Feeling.
:h as the half­ (Colson 1740 : xxi- xx ii)
lbe.
table , geneti c This small abacus, dubbed Saunder son 's "palpable arithm etic," is a magical de\'ice.
JUng age, th e Touch , not vision, was the operative modality, with mathematics as the intervening vehi­
cnse thought, cle . Colson called it "a new Species of Mathe matical Sy mbols." It is a feel ing machine, a
kofNewton, digital m achine , a cipher machine. Predating other touch technologies such as Nap ole­
;orship (other on's 'night writing' or Louis 8raille's r aised-point inscriptions, Saunderson used his pal­
me position) . pable ab ac us to calculate numbers purely m anu ally, as well as to represent shapes and
as in his work sy mbols wh ich he achieved by spanning silk thread in and around multiple pegs . Like
lis Cambridge a small hand 100m or needlepoint hoop, Saunderson's handheld table used encoding of
numerica l values (in Colson's description, "a commodious Notation for any large N um­
bers") at t he micro level as well as combinatorial and sy nthetic cohesion at the macro
ature of leve!. "It w as by the Sense of Feeling our Author acquired most of his Ideas at h rst,"
,ses, the wrote his Cambridge colleagues. "By the help ofth ese (h aptic tool s] he could calcula te,
consider and set down th e Sums, Products, or Q uoti ents in Nu mbers, as exactly as others could
:t to the by Writing" (Anon. 1740: xi-x ii ).
1aster of Toda y it would have a differ ent nam e: a pi xel raster. Saun derson 's hand 100m was
arranged in a grid with fi xed-size m easurem ents and spaces bet ween pegs; each peg
1740 : vi) poi nt was able to 'store' a numeric valu e; the aggr egate effect of the device, however,
w as not in the solo functioning of a point or set of points , but in the entire ' image'
'Ceptual know­ achieved by the interaction of each constituent point.
The two modalities (little squares and poi nt cyphers) are thus evident in Saunderson:
:) John Colson , on the one hand there is the material or perceptual modalit y of the pixel as a little square
)alpable Arith­ (dots in scanning television screens, the jagged edges seen in anti- aliasing, and so on),
It by the bl ind but, on the other hand, there is the inform atic or m athematical modality of the pixel as a
sample point (mathematical variables measuring color, intensity, etc. for a given position).
\Vhile more interesting historical precedents exist, such as Peter Mitterhofcr's
an a Foot typew riter of 1864, which featured a t ypeface built up from pi xels rather than contin ­
1S divided uously c urved lines, and the afore mentioned cathode ray tube, which uses raster scan ­
y, at right ning of fluorescent material s, the true modern birth of the pixel happened at sorne point
Notches, in the first six month s of 194 8 . A team working at the Institute for Advanced Study
belonged (lA S) in Princeton , led by John von Neum ann, used simple quadratic eql1ations plotted
~ d into an on an oscilloscope to draw letters to the screen (wh ich was th en photographed). Th e
was per ­ pixel wa s a byproduct; th e dots used in th e plotted graph s were rn anipul ated in snch a
1e help of way as to create letters using a monospaced grid of fiv e dots by eight dots. Like M itter­
his Num ­ hofer b efore it, wh o famously used th e device to pri nt his ow n narne, the lAS team used
)ther, was th eir new pixellettering to spell out the acronym s for their institutional horne, and t hat
1at Name. of th e electronic computer project (ECP) th ey wer e w orking on . H ence the modern
502 PIX E L

pixel app ears first not as an ut te r ance but as acode: "ECPIAS." The whole affair was
"a whim," the scientists wrote in the summer of 1948, to de mon strate "the use of this
equipme nt to plot not graphs but lett r s" (Bigelow et al. 1948).
As with Sallnd er son before, the founding inseriptio n of the mod ern pixel is not
simply via that of a littl e dot , bu t a mathe matieal sample p oint. N ames are syntae tieal1 y
reduced to letter abbre"iations, just as eaeh letter is displayed u sing a fixed grid of sample
p oints tllrn ed on or off. FlIrther, the pixels wer e er eated, not lI sing a raster-based dis­
p lay syst em, but lI sing its opp osite , th e oscilloseope whieh draws its image analogieally
using eontinuollsly variablE' x and y coordinates . How unlikely it is that the m odern pixel
appears first on the osei lloseop e, not on its grid-bound eOll sin , t he telev ision . The least
hospitable pi eee of hard wa r e end s up leadi ng to the developm ent o f a new representa­
tional mode. The reason for thi s is that the 1948 pixel is an informatie eon strllet , not a
fae t ofhardware (as it w as with Saunderson). It is a remnant not of the raster grid, but of
pattern man ipulation simul ated by diserete signal voltages, not from a littl e square, but
from a sample point . In oth er words, the first modern pixel is a simulated pixel.

References

Anon . (1740) 'Memoirs of the Life and Character of Dr Nieholas Saund erson, Late Lucasia n
Professor of the Mathematics in the University of Cambridge', in N. Saunderson, Th e Ele­
l car
menes of AJaebra, in Ten Books, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
six i
Bigelow, J . H. et al. (1948) 'Fourth Interi m Progress Report on the Physical Realization of
an Electronic Computing lnstr umen t', record s of the ECP, archives of the Institute for coioJ
Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. rusto
Colson, J. (1740) 'D r. Saunderson's Palpable Arithmetic Decy pher ' d', in N. Saunderson, The
EJem encs ofAlaebra, in Ten Books, Cam bridge: Cambridge U niversity Press. up F
Bron
the r
Alexander R. Galloway
it jus
Department of Media, Cu lture, and Comm unicati on, New York Univers ity ridin

it, bt
inm
is de,
obje(
1
iden!
like .
child
also,
with
rock,
the r
ways
inter

k no....
,hale affair was MY ROCI<
"the use of thi s

ern pixel is not

lre syntactically
d grid of sampJ e
aster- ba sed dis­
age analogicaJly
le modern pixel
'ision, The least
leW representa ­
:onstru ct, not a
,ster grid, but of
ittle square, but
1 pixel.

m, Late Lu ca sian
,nderson, Th e Ele­
r can't help thinking of the rock as my rack. The rock is a shapel)' squared -off oval , about
six in ches long, which fits heavil)' in the hand ; it weighs about a pound. It is cream)'­
,:al Realization of
' the Institute for
colored and porous, composed of grains as large as a millimeter in diamete r, veineel with
rust- colored cracks. Its color, weight, texture, and rough s)'mmetr)' make it pleasing.
Saunderson, Th e 1 found this roc k on a beach in Cambria , California, in June 1996, 1 was dridng
;, up Route One USA, nursing a heartache, and r had stopped for the night, Walking
Bronteesqu e on th e dark shore as the wind whipped m)' heav)' skirt about me , 1 glimpsed
the rock, glowing among darke r rai n-wet stones. "Of all the gin joints in the world" ­
it just happ ened that r ca me b), that storm)' evening, just when the rock hap pened to be
riding on the shore's edge,
r love the rock not onl)' because it is beautiful and it lifted m)' heart when 1 needed
it, but also because it is the living embodiment of time, philosoph), in ston e. OsciJlati ng
in m)' perception between metaphor and thing in itself, the rock deepl), confirms what
is dear to m e, then radicall)' negates it. 1 will show )'ou that the rock is not an inanimate
object-just ver)' slow.
Even putting awa)' anthropomorphism, the rock feels fa m iliar. Of course we can
id en tify with rocks, in the sense that we projec t a meaning onto them. Smooth stones
like mine ca ll up comparisons to organic and human-made things: eggs, fish, bowls ,
children, wise old heads . But the rock has aspects, in its indepe ndent entit)' as rock, that
also cal! up a sense of shared being. It is smooth because it has been tumbled together
with other rocks for eons, Its fi ssures show that eventual!)' it will break up into smaller
rocks, and finall y to dust, As we humans undergo a polishing in the co urse of life, so
the rock has suffered and endured. The rock is what we cal! an object, and so , in many
ways, am 1, The rock corresponds to me not because of m)' projections onto it but in our
inter- objectivit)' (to use Vivian Sobchack 's term ) ,
Ye t the insurmountable difference between the rock and me makes it t errible to
know: sublime . Subli mit)' occurs when something that inhabits the space-time of m)'
504 MY ROCI<

experience makes reference to a space-time I cannot comprehend. This smooth rock Horno erectus wa,
that corresponds so comfortingly to the shape of m y palm comes from a tim e so ancient washed their se
I cannot imagine it. The rock turns out to be between 5,000,000 and 23,000,000 yea rs containing m)' r
old . Att r ibuting maximum yo uthfuln ess to the rock, it has lived 114,000 of my life­ which began U
times. The rock has been in my company for one-quarter ofmy life; I have been with it perhaps got bur
for less than one-five-hundred-thousandth of its life. So far. westward and (
I confess that I have brought the rock t o class for several years now, to illustrate to invaded Baghdac
students the concepts of virtuality, monad, and plane of immanence . The rock, I sug­ River, whieh err
ges l, is a node on the plane of immanence. Not the best node, not the one that yields the dreds of years, n
most act ualizing activity, but a node nonetheless. It teem s with virtuality, with places Al! of this is
it might have been and events it might have witnessed, but we cannot know what they the more eareful
are. Mon ads are individuals that reflect the entire universe from their particular vantage that it is impossil
point. The rock and I are both monads, with quite different capacities. The roe k has stand what it acti
witnessed a lot but can express little; 1 have wit nessed a little but can express a lot. If the singular monad I
rock were a movie, it would have a shooting ratio of 5,000,000 to 1. in a eertain wa)',
I began to feel that I was prostituting my rock to philosophy. Contemplating it the wrong name
abstractly b egan to seem misguided; I needed to unders tand it physically. Research led Roeks are e>
me to hypothesize that the rock might be limestone-an extremely common carbonate holding down th,
rock. But when I gingerly rubbed it with a cheese grater and poured sorne wine on the the invention of
resul ting particles, it did not fizz , as límestone would. slow life of geolo
So, nervous as a matchmaker, [ took the rock to my colleagues in the geology People like t
depar tment. Three geologists hovered over my ro ck and praised its unusualness and of hi storieal fore
beauty; 1 was quite chuffed. Each saw it from his or her point of view. James MacEach­ And people like
ern , a speciali st in sedimentary rocks, analyzed my rack. First he peered at it with a past. The rock is
loupe . He rubbed it with a porcelain plate and dropped weak hydrochloric acid on the is-the diamond
resulting powder; there was no reaction. His first guess was that it was quartz sand­ But m)' roek
stone. He examined it through a refl ec ting binocular microscope, which showed it to events: volcanie E
contain man)' crystals that are idiomorphic, i.e. sharp-edged. Thi s suggests it was not that occurred on
transported ver y faro It is so crystalline that it appears to have been partly cooked, as memor)'. Wise ar
though it had been near a volcanic tunnel. It contain s no fossils.
Robbie Dunlop, a specialist in volcanic rock, scraped the rock and smelled it,
revealing the earthy smell of volcanic ash. She suggested it is lapiJIi tuff, a transitional
form between sedimentary and volcanic rock. The third geologist, Kevin Cameron,
determined the rock to be pyroclastic cr)'stal t uff. This means it was formed of volcanic This informat
ash that settled while annealing, then sedimented. The rock would then have broken off Berkeley: Uní
from the sedimentary layer as a cobble or boulder, and been carried out to sea by a river. 2 [ thank Sharor
The geologists suggested it was from a former volcanic mountain of inland California. Simon Fraser 1
A little more research leads me to the following hypothesis: My rock was created
in a violent eruption from an island volcano off the coast of California sometime in the
Laura U. Mark
early M iocene, which began 23 million years ago . Rock and ash spewed out ofthe vol­
Schaal far the Con
cano, crystalli zed, then lay there sed imenting for several million years. It is a young
rock in the scheme of things: it was not around for the dinosaurs, who became extinct
65 .5 million years ago. Mastodons and horses might have galloped through the grass
along its surface.
During the late Pliocene, just 2-3 million years ago , as portions of the Earth's crust
shifted, the volcanic islands were lifted up and became the Gabilan coastal mountain
range. As my rock tilted in its bed and joined a continent, over on another continent
 MY ROC/( 505

smooth rock Hamo erectus was beginning to stand up. Erosion flattened these mountain s, and st reams
ne so ancient washed their sediments toward th e Pacific and the interior. r am g uessing the chun k
00,000 years containing my rock washed inland at around the time of t he Pleistocene Great Ice Age,
Oof m)' life­ which began 1.8 million years ago. 1 There it probably reformed in alluvial sedimcnt,
: been with it perhaps got buried under glacial debris, and when the Gabilan mountain range tilted
westward and eroded, my rock washed into the Salinas valley. When the Mongols
) ill ustrate to invaded Baghdad in 1258, my rock was riding toward the sea, p erhaps on the Little Sur
~ rock , 1 sug­ River, which empties north of Cambria. Thcre it rolled along the coas t for some hun­
hat yields the dreds of years, refining its smooth egglike shape, until 1 found it and took it away.
" with place s All of this is hy pothesis, and invites a philosopher's respect for scientific caution: for
)11' what they the more ca refull)' [ tr)' to ascertain the rock's trajectory, the more apparent it becomes
eular vantage that it is impossible really to know. My rock seems to represent virtuality, but to u nder­
rhe rock has stand what it actualIy is, is tentative work indeed! Generalizing reduces m)' rock from a
ss a lot. lf the singular monad to a m ere example , w hich 1 am loath to do. To mi sidentify it would be,
in a certain wa)', to annihilate its actualit)' (from the human point of view), like putting
templating it the wrong name on so meone's grave.
Research led Rocks are extreme relativizers. How foolish we are to think a domes ticated rock is
.on carbonate holding down the papers on our desk! For in the big scheme , our desk and papers-and
~ wine on the the invention of paper, and the origin of language- are but a whisker in the long and
slow life of geology.
. the geolog)' People like to wear gem stones, which are treasured for their literal crystallization
lsualness and of historical forces. A diamond ring is a tin)' piece of absolute alterit)' on )'our finger.
les MacEach­ And people like fossils, which communicate sp ecific, legible information about time
d at it with a pasto The rock is halhvay between fo ssi l and diamond , and not valued as either of them
ic acid on the is-the diamond for its abstractness, the fossi l for its particularit)'.
quartz sand­ But my rock is precious, too . Slowly, siowly, it took shape through cat aclysmic
snowed it to events: volca nic eruption, tectonic shift , and erosiono It carries the distant echoes of all
sts it \Vas not that occurred on the Earth in th e last five mili ion years. They are etched in its geologic
Iy cooked , as memory. Wise and silent, it lies quietly on m)' windowsill. 2

d smelled it ,
a transitional Notes
in Cameron,
cd of volcanic Thi s information is gleaned from Arthur D. Howa rd , Geolo8ic Hi story if ¡\1iddle California,
¡ve broken off Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
sea by a ri ver. 2 1 thank Sharon Kahanoff, Richard Coecia, and my eolleagues in the geology department at
Simon Fraser University for their insightful comm ents.
California .
( was created
netime in the Laura U. Marks
>ut of the vol­
Sc hool for the Contemporar y Art s, Simon Fraser University, Britis h Co lu mbia
It is a )'oun g
,ea me extinct
ugh the grass

Earth 's crust

;tal mountain
ner eontinent
 I
---------

SACCHARIN SPARROW (CIRCA 1955)

not pa
dislod
betwe
It cert
of195
T
use. R
ges ts t

The sF
to its :
1950s
this fo
expect
to derr
manne
a desir.
W hen an object is designed to interact with the body, how do we study its material cul­ Tt
ture? The question is particularly relevant when considering wearabl e objects (clothing, Becaus
accessories, iPods), objects designed to shape the body (weight machines, diet/bulk­ aged fa
ing pills and potions), and objects that enhance physical pleasure (massage chairs, sex ness pr
toys). These item s, while possessing a solid mater iality, take on cultural m eanings on ly US bul
through their encounter with human use rs. Because they require an intense physical that ne
connection in order to "work," and becau se the connection can effectively m erge mat­ willing
erial and self for the user, these objects m ust be considered equal parts 'stuff' and sen­ World
sation. The histor ian who would work with historical body objects thus has a particular alterna
challenge. When the original users are no longer available for questioning or if too much It .
ti me has passed to recapture their initial ex periences, how might we conceptualize the sacchar
dynamic meanings created th rough such physical-material engagements? H ere a saccha­ them a
rin container is offered as a case study of one possible approach. Thro ugh a combination whodi
of close mate rial observaríon and a careful re -imagining of body encounters, it is possi­ may ha
ble to suggest a means of decoding that 1 term 'ex periential' material c ulture. receive
consun
the eXF
The Sparrow ble che
encoun
In the early 1950s, Larry Ka soff, a Brooklyn -based jewelry maker, saw an opportunity rin no\'
in the makeshift decorative containers wom en were using to dispense saccharin rather
than the medicinal bottles in which the tablets were soldo Hi s sparrow appears to be the
first container expressly for this purpose. Its decorative ex terior echoed the costume
jewelry and pincushion design he had prev iously perfected; a special interior metal coat­
ing prevented taste distortion through oxidation. Today';
vVhy the sparrow? In deed why any of the 'animal' containers Kasoff desig ned and ing the
successfully sold between 1950 and 1970? They were not easy to operate . They were parts: t
 SACCHARIN SPARROW (CIRCA 1955) 507

not particularly convenient. They clashed with table décor. The sparrow's top was easily
dislodged from the base; any attempt to put it in a bag or purse (or even quickly pass it
between users) scattered pellets everywhere. lt required close attention to manipulate.
It certainly didn't match the tableware: the bird was as ill at ease among the clean lines
of 1950s moderne as it was among the fussy flora ls of antique Victoriana.
The sparrow was a high-maintenance object designed to stand out in design and
use. Reconstructing the entanglements it invited with its primarily female users sug­
gests that the bird's cultural value was in just this J'equired attention.

Encounters

The sparrow was frequently first encountered by its users as a gifted object. According
to its manufacturer, department stores began to carry the object prewrapped in the
1950s after managers determined it was a popular hostess gift. Receiving a sparrow in
this form required one to carefully unwrap the small package and likely he ightened the
expectation that something speciallay inside. As gifts were, and are, typica lly a means
to demonstrate the st atus and good taste of the giver, encountering the sparrow in this
manner encouraged r ecipients to regard the saccharin container right from the start as
a desirable object.
¡terial cul­ This is sign ifi cant. Saccharin had been roundly rejected in the early 20th century.
(clothing, Because it originally appeared unannounced as a cheap replacement for sugar in pack­
diet/bulk­ aged foods and beverages, saccharin had become the postcr-child for unscrupulous busi­
chairs, sex ness pra cti ces and inadequate r egulatory oversight. Saccharin remain ed available in tll
,nings only US but was packaged expressly for diabeti cs and others who had medical conditions
se physical that necessitated abstention from sugar. Evidence suggests that few, if any, consumers
nerge mat­ willingly substituted saccharin for sugar prior to 1950 unless they had too Even during
T' and sen­ World War 1I, when sugar rationing drove hou sewives to drastic experiments with
I particular
alternative sweeteners, saccharin remained an 'inferior' producto
iftoo much It would be a mistake to suggest that these sparrows single-handedly transfor med
ltualize the saccharin fro m an undesirable to a desirable commod ity. After all, only about 50,000 of
re a saccha­ them appear to ha ve been purchased in the US over a period of 20 years. 1 Yet for those
ombination who did use a container, especially for those who received them as gifts, the sparrow
, it is possi ­ may have been an influential item. Receiving a gift of a saccharin container required the
receiver go to the store or pharmacy and purchase a bottle of saccharin to fill it. Had
consumers' only encounters with saccharin been the medicinal botde at the pharmacy,
the experience would have reinforced previou s notions of the substance as an und esira­
ble chemical. In this co ntex t, the unwrapp ed festive sparrow dramatically reframed the
encounter for its users. Quite the opposite of an unwanted invisible commodity, saccha­
)pportunity rin now arrived as a sign of affection, a material marker of hospitality betvveen fr iends.
harin rather
ars to be the
:he costume Engagements
. metal coat­
Today's sparrows are no longer wrapped. W e can imagine, however, that after remov­
lesigned and ing the bird from its casing one had to discern how it worked. The object had three
. They were parts: the bird opened easily; removing the 'top' separated th e bird horizontally along
508 SA eeHA R 1N S PAR RO W (e [R eA 1955)

the middle revealing a hollow interior body cavity. Hidden on the underside of the top, oxidizi;
secured by a magnet, were the tongs; these were easily detached with a slight pull and contexl
could be used to manipulate the pellets. Inserting these saccharin pellets required a that wf
complex series of motions. One had to carefully remove them from the miniature med­ Iysis. B·
icine bottle and shake them directly into the bird's interior cavity. My own experiments object,
with bottles from this era suggest the pellets flow quite freely, requiring practice to get sarily n
the right number in the body without having them bounce out or overflow. ownim
Saccharin tablets typically carne in three sizes, y.. grain, '12 grain, and 1 grain. The sensor)
decision on grain size depended on the dcsired sweetness: y.. grain was equal to about 1 human
teaspoon of sugar. Assuming that typical saccharin users preferred smaller grain sizes, be disrr
g tting saccharin out of the container and into one's coffee or tea required finesse. To before '
use the enclosed tongs successfully, one had to hold the bird body with one hand, grasp with se
th tongs between the thumb and index finger, reach just at the side of the pellet, and possibil
carefully lift it out of the container and into a neighboring cup of coffee or tea. This was
not easy to do on the first try, or the second. Whereas sugar required familiar motions
and equipment, saccharin dispensing required a new process, one more closely associated
with b eauty procedures than food preparation . The tongs look like tweezers and grabbing
tlle pcllet evokes sensations similar to sewing or laboratory work. Using the tweezers put Jt j ~
the user's body on display: because this delicate reach, grab, and lift were commonly in pa n
the service of sweetening coffee and tea, the display was frequently a public one. During Bre
the
my own experiments removing pellets from the sparrow I was keenly aware of others'
the
vvatching me repeatedly attempt to pick up (and drop) a pellet before achieving success. I
aut
was acutely aware of fingers, hands, and face being observed by others.
2 Acc
The sparrow's design may have heightened this sense of physical display. According of e
to historian Deanna Cera, anima l designs were among the most popular in costume \VO l
jewelr)' in the 1950s, particularly renderings of birds and domestic pets 2 Many who off
encountered the sparrow would have been familiar with Kasoff's better-known jew­ COS i

el ry line, Florenza. The gemstone eyes were identical to those used in his costume set­
tings; the patina echoed tllat of bestselling pins and earrings. Such similarities enabled
the sparrow to bridge body and table. It is quite possible to imagine women encoun­ Carol)
tering tlle sparrow wearing similar pins and earrings. The attention required by the Americé
process of releasing saccharin into one's tea did not stop at the cup. Lines between func­
tionality and beaut)' were easi ly blurred. Users may have engaged the sparrow primarily
to make it work. Design similarities, however, invited a simu ltaneous hyper-awareness
of the 'working' body.
The sparrow enabled women to maximize attention for themselves through the act
of minimizing caloric intake. Few women confronted saccharin unaware that it had far
fewer calories than sugar; as early as 1953 saccharin was promoted as a primary way to
lose weight or maintain thinness. Carefully opening the bird, dislodging a single pellet,
and placing it gently jn the glass enacted a drama in which 'diet' sweet was an opportu­
nity for complete self-absorption .

Conclusion

The sparrow exists apart from the body. We could describe its size (about 3 inches long
and Ji/ 2 inches tall), we could detail its composition (cast metal in yellow gold, non­
 SACC H ARI N S PAR ROW (CIRCA 1955) 5 09

of the top, oxidizing interior coating), and we could d escribe its designo AIJ of this is necessar y to
lt pull and contextuali ze the sparrow. The purpose of this exercise, however, is to demonstrate
reguired a that vvhen engaging body objects one also needs to undertake a bodily engaged ana­
lture med­ Iysis. Because using the sparrow required an intimate entanglement between body and
periments object, we as historians must recast the object within an embodied contexto This neces­
tice to get sarily requires imaginative leaps: the author must herself enter the object, bringing her
own impressions to the process. As scholars have argued, there is no wa)' to r ecreate the
grain. The sensory past: our own subjective impressions , combined with the sheer multiplicity of
to about I human reaction s, prevent us from •feeling ' the factual past. Yet those fcel ings ought 110t
;rain sizes, be di smissed; they offer a point of entry into tlle possible. More resear ch is necessa r y
hnesse. To before we ca n conclude tllat saccharin sparrows enabled women to fuse self-indulgence
and , grasp with self-denial. Only by embodying OUI" own inquiry, however, can we illuminate that
pellet, and possibility.
l. This was

lr motions
associated Notes
d grabbing
ieezers put It is difficult to determine precisely how many of Florenza's containers were sold , as com­
mmonly in pany record s were destroyed in the 1980s. Kasoff reca ll s "everyone" having a sparrow in his
le . During Brooklyn social cirele and estimates the number of sparrows alone sold in the US through
the 1960s as 50,000. Certainly the price of the Florenza containers, $ 2 in the 1950s, put
: of others'
them within reach of working- and middle-elass consumers. CEmail corresponden ce wit h
g success. I
author and Larry Kasoff, July 1, 2004.)
2 According to Cera, the costume jewelry industry by 1949 had reached sales of millions
According of dollars ayear and was widely regarded as a means by which women of the middle and
n costume working class expressed creativity and inner beauty. See Deanna Farnei Cera, "The Luxury
Many who of Freedom , the Freedom of Luxury in the United States, 1935-1968," in Jewels ?fFantasy:
nown jew­ CoscumeJewelry ?fthe 20th Cencury (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 199 1) : 179, 149.
,stume set­
ies enabled
~n encoun­ Carolyn Thomas de la Peña
red by the American Studies Program, University of California, Davis
ween func­
v primarily
-awareness

ugh the act

1t it had far
lary way to
ngle pell et,
n opportu-

inches long
gold, non­
 I
I
-

~
. ......

.........
..
~,

MY SECRET WEAPON
cane v
oner o
A
last 15
eligibl,
periph
is so ié
ceive s
a whit t
annoul
bumpe
pedest
theref(
more e
M·
fib er­
techni(
smootl
cane's
reach i
ment t
tures l(
m)' stri
movin¡
Sometimes when 1 walk do-wn the street with my white cane, 1 know what it must feel As
like to carry a gun. People freeze, lurch forward then jump back in confusion. They messag
whisk toddlers and dogs out of my path, ready to shield their loved ones with their ovvn corner
bodies . Sighted companions telJ me that their faces show the kind of shock and panic who IV
associated with confronting life-threatening danger. 1 know this even when I'm on my realize
()w n from the telltale sounds that accompany these responses: the squeaks and yelps as think;
smal1 bodies- human and canine-are yanked out of my way. signifit
What is the fear about? On one level, it is the fear of collision, the fear that I may munic
bump into them , their children, their little dogs, that 1 may hurt them, or myself, or windo
both . There seems to be an assumption that I have no awareness that 1 am sharing the their e
public spaces I travel through, that 1 am oblivious to whatever and whomever may be into 01
in my path, that 1, as an other-worldly, alien creature, have a brutal disregard for the hea r fe
sanctity of human life. Or is it afear of the cane itself? Do they think it is a magic wand In
t hat wil! transform whatever it touches, into what, I wonder. Do they think that my ask a I
blindness is catching, and when my cane touches them they'll go blind too? Or do they there.
think ¡'m out there waving an electronic cattle prod around, determincd to zap as many direet
unsuspecting pedestrians as lean . other
The fear is at odds with the usual responses to blindness: pity and awe-pity at ionabl
the unfortunate tragedy of lost sight, and awe at the seemingly remarkable fact that need:
I am out and about in the world and not home grieving. The whiteness of the cane is front ·
meant to make it more visible, especially in low light, but it is also associated with sur­ e
render. The white flag is a signal that the combatant has abandoned the fight and is m)' bl
willing to be taken prisoner rather than to face certain death. In picking up the white tion il
 MY SECRET WEAPON 511

ca ne what have 1 surrendered? Does the whiteness of the cane den ote that 1 am a pr is­
one r of blindness?
Although 1 have been legal!)' blind since 1 wa s 11, 1 have only ca rried a ca ne for the
last 15 years or so. Like man)' people who are blind in the eyes of the law, and t h er efore
eli gible for government services, 1 am not complet ely sightless. 1 actual!)' have enough
peripheral vision to move through space with some degree of ease. But my central vision
is so impaired that objects and pe ople directly in fr ont of me are invisible . 1 ca nnot per ­
ceive street signs or traffic signals. Despite these da ngers, I was never encouraged to use
a white cane when I was a child 01' young adulto lt was bettcr to "pass" as sighted than l o
announce m)' visual impairment with a visible signifier. If this m eant that 1 som etimes
bumped into people or stood uncertainl)' at street corners llntil I could cr oss in a sighted
pedestrian's wake, this w as preferable to letting thc world know that 1was flawed and
therefore vulnerable. Fortunatel)', logic eventuall)' to ok over and I realized that I was
more of a hazard to myself and others without a ca ne than with one.
M)' cane is elegant in its simplicity: a sleek and slender tube of lightweight carbon
fib er-a material develop ed for the space program for its resilience and durahility. M )'
technique is simple too. While sorne people like to t ap, I prefer to sl ide the can e in a
smooth are ahead of my feet. The ca ne's length is relative to my h eight so that w he n the
cane's tip encounters a curb or an obstacle, I wil! stil! h ave two strides befor e m)' feet
reach it. While the cane's tip sweeps back and forth 1 can feel the texture of the pave­
ment transmitted up its length and into m y hand. On familiar routes, differen t tex­
tures let m e know whe re 1 amo When 1 am in a less populated area and 1 can really hit
my stride, it feels as if the cane is there to pul! the ground along, scro lling it under m)'
mov ing feet .
at it mu st feel As the ca ne communicates relevant deta ils about the path before m e , it also sends
lfusion. They messages to others around me. It is particularly useful when I find m)'se lf at a street
'ith their own com er where there is only a stop sign and no traffic signa!. The motorist pausi ng there,
)ck and panic who w ould normal!)' signal the pedestrian to cr oss , is supposed to notice the cane an d
len I'm on m)' realize that I cannot see the gesture. In realit)' this often takes longer than one might
:s ancl )'elps as think; motorists do n ot always notice the cane, or cl se do no t readil)' recognize w h at it
signifies, and then must debate with them selves or tb eir passengers how best to com­
car that 1 m a)' municate witb me. Sooner or later the)' wil! hit on the happy Sollltion to r ol! clown the
or m)'self, or window and cal! out. But I know better tban to heed their instructions to cross since, in
III sharing the their confusion, tbe)' ma)' n ot notice other vehicles in tbe vicinit)' and ma)' d ir ect m e out
never may be into oncoming traffic. It is safer for m e to wave them through the intersection so lean
regard for the hear for m)'self wben it is time to cross .
a magic wand In man)' situation s- shops, train stations, airports-the ca ne is a sign that I ma)'
think that m)' ask a question, and that 1 m ay need m ore information than the usual, "It's rigbt over
o? 01' do the)' tbere. " Often , sighted people need some gentle prodding about bow to give non\'i sual
:0 zap as man)' directions. "Are you pointing witb )'our right hand ?" I ask. Wben 1 sit in a lecture hall or
other place where I ma)' want to ask a guestion , I keep m )' cane visible, leaning co mpan­
awe- pityat ionabl)' against m)' shoulder, as a signal to the person fi elding the guestions that I wil!
~able fa ct that need some audible indication that I am being invited to speak: "The blind lady in the
of the cane is front row has a questio n."
atecl with sur­ O f course, tbis statement is never actual!)' pronoun ced. Although the cane mak es
le fight and is m )' blindness the most obvious of all my characterisrics, people are reluctan t t o me n­
Sup the white tion it-at least to In)' face. Airline emplo)'ees calling for someone to escort m e to m)'
512 MY SECRET WEAPON

gate or the baggage c1aim area are at a loss to communicate that I need an escort but
not a wheelchair. "Tell them l'm blind," I say, but they seem under some sort of inter­
national stricture against uttering the word. Behind my back- though not always out of
my hearing-the word "blind" is suddenly on everyone's lips. "Look, that lady is blind!"
small children exc1aim. No wonder their parents fear that I'm out there to mow them
down.
M)' cane does in fact have magical power. It has the power to transform me and
anyone in my company. In addition to clearing any pavement 1 walk down, it makes me
invisible to panhandlers and street pollsters. No one ever asks me for spare change or to
sign a petition. Th en there's the halo effect: a phenomenon fir st identified by a friend,
who noticed that she felt herself to be inordinately conspicuous whenever we walked
around together. She started to pay attention and observed that people would loo k at
m e, following the length of roy cane with their eyes. Then they would look at her and
sroile. The smi le was like bei ng crowned with a halo, a reward for being nice to the
blind lady. The effect is magnified if we happen to be with another blind persono But
goodwill vanishes when there are more then two blind peopl e in the group. Then the
sighted companion is perceived to be an irresponsible custodian who has unleashed her
unr uly charges into the world.
It is the fear of all this conspicuousness that makes many newly blind people reluc­
tant to start using a white caneo Adolescents fear they will be ostracized by their peer
group . Elderly adults resent the way the cane wiJI mark them as past their prime. But for At
me, and many like me, the cane is an eroblem of independence and autonomy. It gives any
me the fr eedom to move through the world in sa fet y and with grace. It gives me license Hir
to ask for information when I need it and to decline condescending solicitude. If it makes tic J
me a startling presence on public thoroughfares it may be because I deviate from stereo­ are
typical images of the blind as dependent and frail. This may change in the future as the the
population ages and more and more people with age-related vision impairments aban­ mel
don their fears and take up the ca neo In the meantime, if my white cane makes me look as il
dangerous, I accept the label; shattering stereot ypes is a dangerous business. For now, Lik
striking fear in the hearts of my fellow pedestrians seems preferable to the alternative eno
view that would keep me sequestered at home, out of sight and out of mind.
it a
is t(
Ge or gina Kleege
bel
De parlment of English, University of Californ ia, Berkeley it, .
and
sen
enr
1 pi
age

par
tra l
the
bOl
ele;
ital
:scort but SHIN'S TRICYC LE

t of inter­
·ays out of
is blind! "
lOW them

n me and
:nakes me
mge or to
, a friend,
le walked
Id look at
at her and
ice to the
:rson. But
Then the
:ashed her

>ple reluc­
their peer
1e. But for At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, 1 saw a tricycle. It's not really a tricycle
¡y. [t gives anymore. It is what was left of a tricycle after it was subjected to the atomic blast at
:ne license Hiroshima on August 6, 194-5. But it is easy to identify as a tric)'cle. The characteris­
[fit makes tic form is still evident-the armature and the hubs of the wheels and the handle bars
)m stereo­ are all more or less intact-and that ready identification is integral to its presence in
:ure as the the museum, but so is its degree of damage. It is not, for example, api le of melted scrap
ents aban­ metal, as it might have been had it been closer to the hypocenter. Nor is it undamaged,
:s me look as it would have been farther away. The tricycle is a survivor, although its rider is not.
. For now, Like the human witnesses who provide testimony about atrocities, the tricycle was close
llternative enough to be damaged by the trauma but "survived" to tell the story.
It is very important to the role the tricycle pla)'s in the museum that we can identify
it and also that we can identif)' with it and with its former owners. The tricyc!e's r ole
is to help u s to imagine both the physical and emotional impact of the bombo So it must
be familiar and "work" on us in a register of aIread)' known objects. Standing in front of
it, we (should) imagine the tricycles of the ch ildren we were or have, or have know n,
and the extent of the loss were w e or they to be victims of a comparable trauma. In this
sense, it is an object intended to provoke a kind of productive nostalgia. This e[fect is
enhanced b), the placement ofthe tricycle at child's eye level, and, at the momenLwhen
1 photographed the tricycle during my visit to the museum, a child of almost the ideal
age and size was standing in front of the display case.
The room in the museum where the tricycle is housed al so contains educational
panels that focus on the damage of atomic weapons to human bodies, with graphic illus­
tration s of sores and burns and actual samples of"lost hair" and preserved keloids . That
the damaged bod)' of the tricycle resembles and is meant to stand in for the damaged
bodies of the human beings, is obvious. Both are forms of collateral damage, because
clearl)' neither this 4--year-old child nor his tricycle were the overt targets of the US mil­
itary. The tricycle has retained its structural elements but al! the soft parts are gone.
514 SHIN'S TRICYCLE

There is no seat . There are no peda ls and no handles on the handle bars. Th r e ar e no of quotid
tires , just wh eel hubs. The pattern of the rust echo es the patterns o f scarring in the di sruptiol
photog raphs, and the incomplete " Iimbs" of the cyele foreshadow the m alformations of
the ncxt generation of victims shown in another room of the museum. Rust is not direct
damag from an atomic blast , but the blast m ay have r emoved the protective coating
from the metal surfaces or the rust could be the r esult of subsequent "black rain ." The
rust br ings to my mind other concentrations of post -industrial rust , in r egions where Kodama,l
fac tories have been abandoned rather than blown up.
T he tricyele shar es its vitrine with a helmet. Although the form of the helmet is
military or industrial rather than recreational and although I know that toddlers in 1945
did not wea r sports helmets, the proximity nonetheless makes m e think of a contem ­
porar)' bicyele cr as h helmet and so the pair ing adds another layer of vulnerability to Shin's
the imaginar)' child victim. It 's a somewhat ra ndom pai ring- objects thrown together burie(
by the blast or, more Iikely, by curator ial ex pedien cy. What the helmet and the tricy­
ele ha ve in common is the extent and ty pe of their damage. They are in a sequence of Laurie B
room~ cal!ed "Da maged by Radiation," which also indude "shirt stained by black r ain"
Art Depart
(1,800 rn), " lunch box" (6 00 rn ), "water bottle" (6 00 rn ), "glasses" (1,000 m), "ra zor"
(500 m ) , "sak e decanter" (600 m), "golf se t" ( 1, 800 m ), et c. The most famous object in
this display is the paradigmatic watch stopp ed at the time of the blast-8: 15 ( 1,600 m).
The number s in parentheses, taken directly from the displays, are di stances from the
hypocen te r, and are offered in the display as part of the careful scientifi c study of the
impact o f the bomb o"Our" tr icycle was 1,500 m eters from the blast.
Al! of these objects are being cal!ed into playas ev idence , proof, documentation ,
so that the tricycle loses its status as a "real" object and is instead a symbolic object and
a discursive object, d ep loyed in the effort to "strive for a lasting peace so that the events
of that t err ible day ar e never repeated." In this way, the tricyele and its compani ons in
the museu m s at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have counterparts at other trauma memori­
als. Of th ese, objects preserved at Holocaust m emorials are most comparable in volume
but often quite differ · nt rhctorically. By way of contrast, we might consider the mound s
of shoes or the collections of silverware in se veral of the Holocaust mu seums. These
sorted compilations of objects w ere assembled, not by cu ra tors but by the Nazis, who
in orchestrating an industrial genocide left behind " indu st r ialized" evidence. While the
tara cts at Hiroshima and N agasaki were industrial , the deaths w ere individual and the
strategy of the museums there is to emphasize the specificity of the suffer ing through
t he individuality of the objects on display.
And "my" tricycle is an extremely specifi c object. It was, I learned, ow ned by Shin­
ichi Tetsutani , who was two wecks short ofhis fourth birthday at the time of the ex plo­
sion. Japanese sch ool children, and som e children from other parts of the world, may
be at the museum specifi cal!y to see "Shin's Tricyde," w hich was the name of the chi l­
dren's book that to ld its sto r y. T h ey wil! know the speci fi c story of thi s tricyde and its
riJer: that Shin was riding his tricyde at the time of the blast, that he died later that
samc day, and that he and his tricycle were buried together in their backyard . 1 So for
thi s particular group of spectators, the tricyde is an obj ect of"pi lgrimage," it is a desti­
natíon object.
T he tr icyd e can n o longer tran sport a young ríder, ye t it continues to work. Rep­
resentation , surrogate, destination, ev idcnce: the tricyele wor ks as a palimpsest of
memor y culture. As a traumatized object, it is uniquely suited for this role. Taken out
 SHIN 'S TRICYCLE 515

e are no of quotidi an practice , it invokes and evokes ordinar)' event s and their extraordinarv
g in the disruption.
ltions of
)t direet
coating Referenc e
in ." The
.s where Kod ama, Tatsuhara (1992) Shin's TricycJe, New York: Vv'alker and Company.

elmet is
in 1945 Note
contem­
bility to Shin's fathe r exhumed tbe bic)'c1e and donated it to tbe museum man)' )'ears after it was
buri ed, wben be and bis wife decided to give tbeir son "a proper burial in a cem eter y."
together
le tricy­
Jence of Laurie Beth Clarl<
Ick rain"
Art Department and Visual Culture Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
I ((razor"
)bjeet in
600 m).
'rom the
Iy of the

:ntation,
'ject and
Le events
nJons m
nemori­
I volume

mounds
s. Tbese
zis, who
¡hile the
and the
through

by Shin ­
.e explo­
rld, may
the chil­
e and its
ate r that
.\ So for
s a desti­

'rk. Rep­
lpsest of
aken out
 SNOW SHAI<ER
Are th
jamin':
19th-c
were (
stuffed
the de(
that Be
ite belo
the con
an obje
close, a
Th
in a COl
about tf
or, latel
exists p
oval COI
or Aitte
Ama n who stands submerged in water holds an umbrella over his head. He is sheltering enhancé
fro m the gently falling snow. This was the scene depicted in one of the first snow globes, comes F
which was displayed at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878. Crystallized here is functior
an absurd contradiction: what good is the umbrella when surrounded by water? Over settle. A
a hundred years later another snow globe scene renders a different anomaly: a souvenir For
oE the ending of the Cold War, this snow globe features the graffitied Berlin Wall just appeal, I
breached by a Trabant. Atop the waH stand a couple of c1umps of people, facing west, 1963: 2
to\·v ards their new life. However, the snow falls endlessly on this vision of the defrost­ everyth i
ing of political relations. If these obj ects fascinate, it may be because of the conundrums Pau l Szo
they pose, the contradictions they open and do not resolve. life, not
Some tim e in 1931 or 1932 Walter Benjamin jotted down a littl e note on ships, ter, an ic
mine shafts and crucifix ions inside bottles . He cited a comment by Franz Glück on he associ
Adolf Loos. On reading Goethe's complaint against phi listines and those art connois­ 'hopein
scurs who grab hold of the engravings or reliefs that they are examining, Loos con­ sentimel
c1uded that anything that can be touched cannot be an artwork and, conversely, that merciall
whatever is an artwork must be withdravvn from access. Benjamin's typically contrarian forever i
extension of the thought asks then whether these objects under glass are therefore art­ 'vervveil.
works, 'because they have been placed out of reach' (Benjamin, 1999: 554). This sliver Thi ~
of insight leads to the heart of Benjamin's ideas as laid out most famou sly in his essay sa)', gen(
from the 1930s ' The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility' (Ben­ 1950s w
jamin , 2003). In the epoch of mass production, cultural artefacts meet the viewer half­ Bern har­
way, metaphorically and actually. They ex it from darkened niches of cathed ral s, leave manufac
the gallery, are released from the captivity of singular time and space to enter into the shaped r
DI-bit of the vi ewer. In reproduced form artworks can be grasped in the viewer's hand. ¡mate th
As film, the pacey and choppy rhythms and milieu they depict are familiar to viewers the VW
from their everyday technologized and city lives and so can be easi ly grasped - or under­ shape in
stood. These objects, appropriable by the masses, are not artworks, but democratically istration
m anipulatable forms of culture, after art, prefigurations of a new political age. What that the~
then of the object in a bottle , unable to be fingered, available only to contemplation? shelters (
 SNOW SHAI<ER 517

Are these ornaments, against all conventional system s of value, now artworks? Ben­
jamin's thoughts on objects under glass were stimulated by his investigations of the late
19th-century bourgeois parlour that had been his own childhood home. These rooms
were cluttered with glass domes over hair sculptures or wax-flower arrange m ents,
stuffed animals or fake religious relics, and these new objects, a development out of
the decorative glass paperweight: snow globes. Would those particular glassy objects
that Benjamin collected and which, as Adorno recou nts, numbered among his fav our­
ite belongings (Adorno, 1963: 23 7) also coun t as works of art? 0 1" is in fact, in thi s case,
the contemplative glassed-over scene there to be grabbed ? Is the snow globe so charged
an object for Benjamin because it is and is not, at one and the same time, distanced and
close, an object that marks the cusp between art and non-art?
That snow globes, commonly characterized as the epitome of kitsch, should feature
in a controversy about aesthetic definition and value is not a surprise, for everything
about the snow globe elicits contradiction. The snow globe contains a world under glass,
or, later, clear plastic. As such the scene contained is untouchable, but the glo be itself
exists precisely to be grasped in the hand. The hand neatly fits around its rounded or
oval contours, in order to shake the miniature scene, so that the artificial snow flakes,
or flitter, be they ofbone, rice, corn, polystyrene or glitter, slowly sin k through water,
s sheltering enhanced with glycol and perhaps antifreeze and anti-algae agents. The snow globe
lOW globes, comes properly to life only when it is fully filled with a liquid that becomes invisible,
ized here is functioning solely as a medium for impeding and transporting snowflakes u ntil they
later? Over settle. After shaking, it is as iflife has suddenl)' entered and then crept away again.
: a souvenir For Adorno, the glass globes contained Nature morte, still live, dead life: their
.H Wall just appeal, like that of other 'petrified, frozen 01' obsolete components of culture' (Adorno,
acing west, 1963: 237), such as fossils or plants in herbariums, signals Benjamin's attraction to
the defrost­ ever)'thing that has alienated from it self any 'homel)' aliveness'. For the literary theorist
onundrums Paul Szondi, the emphasis, on the contrar)', was on their freeze-framing of a scene ol'
life, not death. He called the snow globes 'reliquaries', which provide a form of shel­
te on ships, ter, an idea of preserving something, a scene, an event, for the future. For this reason,
,Z Glück on he associated them with Benjamin's miniature memoir scenes that snapshot moments of
lrt connois­ 'hope in the past' and transport them into the future (Szondi, 1978: 500-1). Szondi's
, Loos con­ sentiment can be phrased in a more sentimental version: the snow globe circulates com­
iersely, that merciall)' as a souvenir or memento. It is supposed to capture an instant to be relived
ycontrarian forever in memor)', a moment that compels the viewer to express, like Goethe's Faust,
lerefore art­ 'verweile doch, du bist so schan', 'sta), a while, )'01.1 are so beautiful'.
l.Ihis sliver This souvenir designed to mark an individual's unique experience is, needless to
in his essay sa)', generic. Indeed, the resurgence of commercial production of snow globes in the
bility' (Ben­ 1950s was attributed to a genericall)' German Romantic experience in the Odenwald.
viewer half­ Bernhard Koziol, who was to become one of two main postwar German snow globe
cdrals, leave manufacturers, glimpsed a snow)' landscape with deer and fir trees through the dome­
lter into the shaped rear windows ofhis Volkswagen Beetle car, and the vision inspired him to r ean­
,wer's hand. imate the snow globe production that his firm had abandoned in the 1930s ­ and using
r to viewers the VW windows' shape. He, by the wa)', lost the rights to the now-dominant dome
l- or under­ shape in 1954, for the other main German compan)', Walter and Prediger, file d its reg­
mocratically istration papers first. Both firms needed another outlet for the excess plastic brooches
11 age. What that the)' produced as souvenirs. These flat outlines of buildings or scenes found new
ltemplation? shelters under plastic, but their lack of three-dimensions meant that a blue backing was
 1

~ -----~ -===-==--- ­

518 S N OW S H A 1< E R

added to the rear of the container. The scene that was once observed from al! sides was
narrowed in the postwar to a front-on view.
The snow globe's dimensions narrowed. And yet it still aspires to encapsulate a
moment out of time, a fantastic scene or idealized m emory. Su eh aspiration is evident in
the name still given the snow globes by Koziol - Traumku8el, dream bulIets. To trace that
imaginative power, an excursion beckons into the weekly escapades of a bourgeois boy
of about 6, whose fantasies of travel across regions and into the hidden spaces of cities
come just after those of another young bourgeois boy, Walter Benjamin, whose fantasies
of traveI and cities are recorded retrospectively in his Berlin memoirs.
[n 1906 one episode ofLittle Ne mo in Slumberland, the comic strip by Winsor McCay,
begins with a polar bear in arctic wastes (McCay, 1997: 71) . Nemo is, as usual, in his
bed - though he is not usualIy shown there; more often he is darting through dream­
jungles, miniaturized or oversized cityscapes or floating over continents in airships.
Nemo lies in his bed and he feeI s cold. [t is snowing in his bedroom. The snow falls
quickly and form s a thick blanket on the floor, which rises and rises until it covers the
bed and covers N emo. The snow becomes the bed's blanket. A snowstorm is raging right
in hi s very room. Once he is fuIly covered by the thick snow Nemo begins to burrow
thro ugh the drift in search of his father's room. But he loses his b earings and finds him­
self in the realm of Jack fro st. Here SnowbaIl awaits him in the valley of silence and
Nemo agrees to go with him, but the beauty ofthe landscape distracts him. 'Nemo was
all eyes and aIl ears and the result was a delightful excursion into the grandest region
ever dreamed of', until, because Nemo is unable to repress the sound of h is breathing
and so breaks the silence, the polar bears come onto his trail. One chases Nemo through
the snowy landscape back to his bed, where Nemo wakes , as he does every w eek, and
this time is 'panting'. In predictable fashion his guardian ca lIs out, as every week, 'get My :
back to sleep'. The snow feIl in a dream and seemed to filI the room itself. In his dream thic
N emo 's room becomes a snow globe, and like a snow globe the room seems to be a The
microcosm of the wide¡- world inside just one part of it, a world within a world, reflex oyer
of the way in which the dream might be seen as a repetition of the world within the tive
smaller globe of the head. ruOl
eles
graF
References has I
and
Adorno , T. W. (1963) 'Charakteristik Walter Benjamins', Prismen : Kulwrkritik und Gesellschaft,
the (
Munieh : Deutseher Tasehenbueh Verl ag.
hasn
Benjamin, Walter ( 1999) Selected Wrilinas: Volume 2:2, 1931-l934, transo Rodn ey Livingstone
and others, Cambridge , MA : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press .
- - (2003) 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Teeh no[ogieal Reprodueibility ' in Selected Writ­ The
inas: Volume 3, 1935-l938, transo Edmund Jepheott, Cambridge, MA: The Be[knap Press char
of Harvard University Press. thos
MeCay, Winsor (1997) Best <1 Little Ne mo in Slumberland, New York: Stewart, Tabori, & Chango the I
Szondi, Pe ter (1978) 'Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin' [1961 ], CriticallnquirJ, Spring. follo
retu
that
Esther Leslie cont
School of English and Humanities, Bi rk beck, University of London tion­
al! sides was TEN FOOT, FOU R

:ncapsulate a
lis ev ident in
To trace that
ourgeois boy
laces of cities
hose fan tasies

insor McCay,
; usual , in his
'ough dream­
:5 in airsh ips.
'he snow fa lls
1it covers the
is raging right
ins to burrow
lIld finds him­
of silence and
n. 'Nemowas
'andest region
: his breathing
\lemo through
ery week, and
ery week, 'get My surfboa rd is 10' 4" [rom nose to tail, 2' 5" wide from rail to rail, and just oyer 3.5"
f. [n his dream t hick . 1 [t is, as one of my grad students taunted, "big enough to get the whole family on."
seems to b e a The top deck's color scheme features a red fade from nose to tail and black pinlines . The
1 world, refl ex overall effect is understated , and in moments of buyer's remorse, less visually seduc­
,rld '.vithin the tive than [ wish it were. The bottom is white with black pinlines, and has a balsa stringer
running down the center. The nose has a teardrop done in bl ack pinlines t hat enci r­
eles the shaper 's logo. This perfectly formed and sited detail is my favorite part of the
graphic designo The whole board is glossed and has a poli shed fini sh, though wilh use it
has developed character. Dings and water seepage show that it's no collector's board ,
and to be frank, thick layers of surf wax usually obscure the deck 's color and design . O n
. und Gesellscheift, the other hand, the board has been maintained weJl enough that even after five years it
hasn't been reduced to a beater, good only for lending to friends and their kid s.
Iney Livingsto ne
Hovvever it looks, a surfb oa rd is defin ed by how it hand les and rides in the water.
'ress.
The board was built fol' a stable ride and long turns, and, if you are nimble cnough, lhe
, in Selected Writ ­
he Belknap Press chance to noseride. [t 's from this particular fixation that we get th e term " hang ten," for
those gifted soul s who plant their board so well in th e wave that th ey ca n dance out to
'abori, & Chango th e front of the board and grip it with all 10 to es, The most I've ever managed is five,
nquir)', Spring. follow ed by an almost immediate falJ from grace. Leaving aside my limitations, let's
r eturn to the board 's shape: it has a concave nose, and a moderate rocker, which is to say
t hat it cuts into the water fairl y easily. The thick rails , or sides, and squ ared off t ail also
contribute to a stable glide through the surf. The three fins are in the thruster forma­
tion- two smaller fins fo rward on the sides, the larger one in a ccnter fin box- which
520 TE N FOOT, FOUR

helps with both control and drive in the water: Al! these factors together combine to and a si
create what is considered a "modern longboard." board i:
I try to tell myself that I own a longboard because I value grace and fluidity, but the to defin
r eal reason that 1 have one is that I'm too big and too old to have a short board. Long WI
versus short means picking sides in a fight that fiares up every few years. Until 1968, al! wish to
surfl)oards were longboards. John Van Hamersveld 's pop-art silk-screened movie poster we neec
ror Bruce Brown's Endless Summer (1966) is surfing's single most iconic image 2 But the of thing
three surfers posed in front of the setting sun, al! carrying boards taller than they are, is democr
not a picture that would have been taken , much less taken seriously, by 1973 . The intro­ "newoc
duc tion of shortboards betwe en 1966 and 1968 transformed the sport. Now surfers theoreti
could "tuberide," getting inside the very curl of the wave itself. Shortboards expanded al partie
exponentially what surfers could do while at the same time upping the power and agil­ On
ity demanded of their riders. Shortboarders are stereotypical!y young and aggro (short enough,
for aggressive). They go for air, quick cutbacks, and other tricky man euvers that move fish- sr
them up and down the wave. thinks n
Although longboards almost died out in the 1970s and 1980s, they made a come­ at just tf
back in the 1990s. There were now a fair number of surfers in their 40s and 50s, who all)' carv
even with ex perience couldn't use thcir short boards as effectively as they once hado is my me
AIso, the truth is that you can get more pleasure more quickly out of surfing on a long­
board with less of a learning curve than you can on a short board. So it is that longboard­
ers are typically older, soul surfing with, rather than against, the wave. Or so goes the
propaganda. The longboard renaissance is now officially a Risorgimento, with more than
60 percent of new board sales. With my purchase of a longboard, 1joined a market seg­ For 1
ment, a demographic, whether I was conscious of it or noto boar
I was 40 years old, and had been living in Southern California for 15 years when 1 2 The
finally decided that 1 wanted to surf. 1 had been one ofthose peopie who would stand on ha me
piers and watch surfers, who would admire them as 1 drove down Pacific Coast High­ 3 His fl
noth
way (referred to as PCH by SoCallocals), who would swim near them and even boogie
4 This
board on the same waves with them, all the while knowing that until I stood up on
legen
a board, 1 would never understand something fundamental about living on the West that t
Coast of the Pacifico So, llearned to surf. I rented a few soft boards and flailed about in not t
thc water. Then 1heard abo ut a guy named Malibu Mike, a sun-grizzled survivor of the jones
stratos pheric escalation of coastal real estate. 3 A few sessions with him and I was off to 5 BruCo
buy the object itself, the board. as "S
If you choose, you can buy a board from the person who manufactures it by hand Hunt
for the same price as buying one from a retailer. This makes a surfboard one ofthe last store
artisanally produced goods in contemporary sports. Although 1 can afford a surfboard, shop:
6 Brun
I cannot afford a bespoke suit, and living in LA, where every day is casual Friday, why
Latol
would 1 even wear one? But the notion of some thing bei ng made for you, by someone
ZMK
standing in front of you is seductive, and as with many a successful seduction, can result
pp 1
in a relationship. My relationship is "vith a laconic shaper named Bruce jones. He is tall,
in hi s late 50s or early 60s, and has been shaping boards by hand since the early 1960s. 4
Jones is known for his expertise in longboards, and 1 was obviously buying into the Peter L
"credibility" of the man and his shop, located in the small town of Sunset Beach, CA s Design/MI
Jones's matter-of-fact quality, and the stripped-down functionalism of the shop's inte­
rior helped me overcome the associations of going long that l'm not crazy about. These
indude nostalgia for the 1960s, a kitsch factor involving roomy Hawaiian print shirts,
 TEN FOOT, FOUR 521

:ombine to and a strong sense of upper-middle-aged , upper-middle-class entitlement. But a long­

board is what r surf, a longboard is what 1 own, and 1 suppose those two come together
ity, but the to define me as a longboarder, dodgy stereotypes and all.
Jard. Long When you acqui re an object, it brings with it a community that you may or may not
ill968, a1\ wish to join. The French sociologist of science Bruno Latour has recently suggestcd that
ovie poster we need to talk about a DinSpolitik. Thi s is his German neologi sm to speak of a Realpolitik
2 of things . For Latour, the ultimate goal is to create the foundation for an "object -oriented
,'e. But the
they are, is democracy." Latour acknowledges that ea eh and every object we encounter can trigger
. The intro­ "new occasions to passionately differ and dispute ."6 If DinSpolitiks are to be of more than
low surfers theoretical interest , though, we'1\ have to admit that our things induct us into DinSpolitik­
s expanded al parti es, whether we want to join them 01' noto
'er and agil­ On days when 1 surf poorly 1 think about my board. r curse it for not being agile
ggro (short e nough, as though it were the rid e and not the rider's fault. Sometimes 1 eovet a super
s that move fi sh-shorter, with a wider nose , swallow-type tail, and two fins-lik e some kid who
thinks new Nikes will make him jump higher. But on good days, when the waves ro11 in
lde a eome­ at just the right height, and my approach is solid, and my stance is good, and I'm actu­
ld 50s, ""ho ally carving turns, when I'm reall y, honest -to-god surfing, my ten foot, four longboard
y once hado is my most beloved possession .
19on a long­
t Jongboard­
: so goes the Notes
:h more than
market seg­ FOl' those lucky enough to ha ve eseap ed the tyranny of English customary units, the
board is 3.15 m x 74- cm x 8.9 cm.
2 The poster and a short paragraph explaining its origin can be found at http ://www.van
)'ears when 1
hame rsveldmuseumofart. com / museum / 03 _1960 / pages / 03 _ end lesssummer. htm
,uid stand on
3 His fu 11 na me is Malibu Mike Avatar. There are certain things about California Lha t you do
Coast High ­ not have to make up .
. even boogie 4 Thi s wou ld be the place, if 1 were the nosta lgic type , to recou nt that Jones worked at the
stood up on legendary Hobie Surfboard Shop, with the greatest collection of shapers in the vvorld at
on the West that time, people like Ralph Parker, Phil Edwards, and the legendary Dale Velzy. But l'm
liled about in not the nostalgic type, so 1 have relegated this information to a footnot e. http:/ / bruce
lrvivor oE the jones.com/
dI was off to S Bruce Jones is just one tOWI1 110rth ofHuntington Beach (HB) on PCH. HB is al so known
as "Surf City" and is the absolute epicenter of large-scale sports r etail marketi ng, with
Huntington Surf and Sport (HSS) facing off aga il1st jack 's Surfboards. These two super­
-es it by hand
stores, both on PCH opposite the H B pier, anchor what is essentially al1 open mall of surf
me of the last
shops on Main Street. HB is all about aggro.
1a surfboard,
6 Bruno Latour, 'From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik, or How to Make Things Public', in Bruno
J Friday, why Latou r and Peter Weibel (eds), Making Things Pub/i c: Atmospheres of Democraey, Karlsruhe:
, by someone ZMK and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, pp. 14-41, republished in this vol ume ,
on, can result pp . 153­ 164.
les. He is tall,
early 1960s+
l),ing into the Peter Lunenfeld
S Design/Media Arts Department, University of California, Los Angele s
t Beach, CA
le shop's inte­
, about. These
n print shirts,
 THUMBNAILS
imaging , .
quantity e
(e.g., amo
trappings,
and juxtaF
ing do thu
rialized du

160 x 120 Each and

moment of
At 160 x 120 pixels, the images my SLVR camera phone generates are small and read­ instance) o
ily moveable , ideally suited for viewing on mobile micro seree ns and for posting to ing camera
blogs, moblogs and other web-based platforms of display. These images, or thumbnail s, in pixels, v
are eur ious bits of "visible evidenee," their eontent often oddly framed, frequently in and meteri
ex treme close-up and sometimes blurred. Not unlike their photographie forebears, they network to
are th remains of a seeing already past: so many glimpses reeorded in the time of their tooth envir
happening; r emnants of momentarily piquecl atte ntion when the spontaneous glaneing events frorr
of a thumb or finger against a shutter button snapped sight into an experienee of encoun­ camera phc
ter. And yet, thumbnails as objeets are quite distinet from photographs. They neither comments,
pose in frames nor inhabit photo albums. In fa et, they are very rarel y printed to paper. jections reg
In pa r t , this is a eonsequenee of size. For being not much larger than the size of an ana­ perature an
tomieal thumbnail (160 X 120 pixels measuring approximately 11/2 inehes X 1 ineh) , galvanic ski!
thumbnails are not aptly suited for conventional modes of pietorial display. And so, they This inl
live another sort of existence, one that is governed by immediacy, plurality, and mobil­ opens onto·
ity. Even as they are technically "still" images , thumbnail s aecumulate (at a rate more semination I
instant than the snapshot) and then disperse. They proliferate in streams. ued dispers,
In their streaming, thumbnails abide by the eonditions of the template : columns MMS-ed an
and rows preseribed by a software applieation regulating their di splay. At first obser­ 11 le-sharing
vation this organization of images is sehematic, taxonomical. However, thumbnails book), filter
are not as stable, i. e ., immobile, as their gridding might imply, for they accrue on eommented
moblogs and similar image management platforms (e .g., Flickr), the most recent push­ where they ,
ing the previously posted others aeross the sereen along their r egimented ranks and tion and gra
fil es. There is an expressive tempo- a rhythm and pacing- to their appearance and In their
movement in reverse chronology aeross and down the screen's surface. Viewers of ious pauses,
these strings wil! notiee pattern s in the punctuated seriality of thumbnails, a steady or systematic SI
staccato pulsing of imaging-posting or its elongated murmurings constituting a photo­ - al! ofwhi
stream 's visuality. streaming a
T hu mbnails as discrete objects within a string might provide content to be parsed tion about a
and rendered legible- a spotlighted pair of failing dice in one, strings of Japanese lan­ working of
lerns, blurred, in another. But this way of approaehing thumbnails locates the expres­ of pe rsi s tin~
sive, the aesthetie, to the isolatable instanee of a single image, each image suffered ti stical m ea~
to stand still in its autarky, bound to the constraints of its framing. What goes miss­ transactions
ing in such viewing: the dynamic nature of the intensity and t empo of attraction and vehicles by v
experience as recorded by an ever-shifting string of thumbnails. Rate and frequeney of take (intenti
 THUMBNAILS 523

imaging, typical times and locations for imaging, kinds of obj ects and people imaged,
quantity of images for any one (kind of) object or person, typical qua lit y of imaging
(e.g., amount ofbl urring, suggestive of movement of different sorts), etc.: these are the
trappings of the expressive, made visible as series, repetitions, combi nations, chunkin gs
and juxtapositions across streams of mobile-imaging thumbnails. Only in their stream ­
ing do thumbnails reveal the constellations and trajectories of curiosity and affect mate­
rialized during one's engagement with the world.

Metadata

Each and every thumbnail image conve)'s information- metadata. Encoded at the
moment of imaging, metadata index conditions surrounding the particular instant (and
lall and read­ instance) of capt ure. For example, a single thumbnail might bear information regard­
or posting to ing camera make and model, date and time of capture, width and height of the image
r thumbnails, in pixels, vvhether a flash was used, focal length used, exposure time, aperture value
frequently in and metering mode, locati on information (either GPS or GSM cell information from
xebears, the)' network towers, but also names of country and cit)') and information regarding Blue­
! time of their
tooth environment (other Bluetooth enabled devices "visible" within a 30-foot radius ) ,
.eous glancing events from a camera phone's ca lendar, as well as tags and descriptions added by the
lee of eneoun- camera phone user - not to mention "footprints," i.e., metadata about the visits and
They neither comments, or tracks, by others to a thumbnail once it is in-stream. And there are pro­
nted to papeL jections regarding the soon-to-be encodability of env ironmental factors, such as tem­
size of an ana­ perature and barometric pressure, and bioJogical data, including body temperature,
les x 1 ineh), galvanic skin response, heartbeat, and pulse.
'. And so, the)' This information that thumbnails bear is neither stabc nor contai ned, for streaming
ty, and mobil­ opens onto the possibility of further circu lation and, conseq uently, the multiplied dis­
at a rate more sem ination of metadata. The logic of social networking g uarantees thumbnails' contin­
ued dispersa\: they are downloaded to computers and uploaded to personal webpages,
Ilate: eolumns MMS-ed and ema iled to friends and family, posted to moblogs and blogs as well as to
At first obser ­ file-sharing sites (e .g., Flickr) and personal presentation pages (e.g., MySpace , Face­
~r, thumbnai ls book), filtered and linked to a variety of sites via RSS and Atom feeds. In being accessed,
hey aecrue on commented on and dissem inated worldwide, thumbnails enter into diverse contexts
;t recent push­ where they are given new life. This is their iterabi lit)': the possibility of ceaseless extrac­
[ted ranks and tion and grafting e1sewhere.
?pearance and In their continuous streaming and circu lation, thumbnails can be tracked, their var­
:e. Viewers of ious pauses, re -routings and dispersals always subject to monitoring on a systemic and
ils, a stead y or s)'stematic scale (b)' governments, corporations, nevvs organizations, site managers, etc.
:uting a photo­ -all of which are, in fact, responsible for the infrastructure and technologies that make
streaming and circulation possible). Thus, thumbnails do not simply provide in forma­
ot to be parsed tion about an individual person, they do so vvithin and in relation to a larger social net­
If Japanese lan­ vvorking of people. Their registering of tendencies and transactions, their recordi ng
tes the expres­ of persisting and varying patterns in circulation, provide an account upon which sta­
image suffered tistical measures and predictive analyses can be based. And so, future inter-r elations,
'hat goes miss­ transactions, and exchanges can be anticipated; the)' can be managed. Thumbnails are
. attraction a nd vehicles by which life is counted, taken into account and accounted foro We, vvho under­
ld frequency of take (intentionally 01" not) to self-record via thumbnails, make ourselves calculable, our
524 THUMBNAILS

tendency to self-document contributing to and ensuring a larger project of regulation

and control.
OED
http:
Vital signals
Heidi R
In June 2006, the Oxford En8Jish Dictionary (online) included a "draft addition" to its
entry on "thumb-nail, n." lt reads: "A miniaturized version of a document or part of Departme
South Car
a document; (Computin8) a small version of a digital image, freq. acting as a hyperlink
to a larger version."¡ Listed before this newly added definition are two other defini­
tions of note: "1. The nail of the thumb" and "2. transf A drawing or sketch of the size of
the thumb-nail; hence f8' a brief word-picture." That the thumbnail image always re­
sound s a reference to the somatic th umbnail is significant. In the ambiguity of the hom­
onym, the thumbnail inhabits a circumstance of both-and. In which case, thumbnails
always occupy a position of contingency and indeterminacy, their appellation signaling
a mutually compensating relation between technological and biological domains. The
status of their objectness shifts. They index the that-has-been of an instantaneously inte­
gral and vital articulation of physiological process and technological mechanism.
As small digital images, thumbnails register the here and now of a different sort of
"self," one in which the ph)'siological asserts its primacy over the cognitive. Precisely
because of their capacity for spontaneous snapping and dissemination, mobile-imaging
t humbnails are best regarded, not as intentioned picturings of things seen, but as mate­
r ializations of bodily responses to sensory stimulation. They process encounters w¡th
objects, people, etc., as so many pulsings of what neurobiologist Antonio Damasio
calls "core consciousness." The autobiographical self is not yet instantiated; the "1" of
extended c0nsciousness as yet unspoken, as yet unspeakable. Instead, the organism as
such predominates. At the level of the organism, there is no thinking, self-aware whole,
onl)' the multiple and concurrent (parallel) networkings of diverse impulses mapping
a f1esh. In their instantaneity, plurality and mobility, thumbnails are grafts of this neu­
robiological living. Each thumbnail indicates less an act of thought than a particular
moment in which a second-order neural pattern dilated into the something felt of aware­
ness and triggered the impulse to image. Such a change in the overa!! state of the organ­
ism provokes a series of motor adjustments; imaging happens. The resulting thumbnail
potcntially post s to a moblog. It is the remains of that singular instant in which living
was simultaneous with imaging, when imaging was one with living.
Thumbnails, then, are proof of Jife. Signatures of vitality-or rather, so many vital
signs, they stream an autography, graftings of core (neurobiological) self elsewhere.
And their rh)'thmic proliferation at 160 X 120 pixels mobilizes a persistence of a vision
that once was lived, at the same time that it signals the movements of a bod)' whose
reconl "lives" on in various streams that document a past and anticipate a future. In this,
the bod)' and its thumbnails are a guarantee: the condition of possibility for the contin
ued networking of forces, whose f10ws of cnergy both keep and track \ife as such.
 T H U M B N A 1L S 525

egulation Note

OED online (1989; Oxford: Clarendon Press/Ox ford University Press, March 2000),
http://www.oed.com/.

Heidi Rae Cooley

ion" to its
Department of Art/Media Arts and Film and Media Studies Program, University of
or part of South Carolina
hyperlink
ner defini­
' the size of
always re ­
)fthe hom­
:humbnails
n signaling
:nains, The
~ously inte­
ism.
:rent sort of
e. Preeisely
,ile-imaging
)ut as mate­
unters with
io Oamasio
:1; the "1" of
organism as
ware whole,
,es mapping
of this neu ­
a partieu lar
elt of aware­
)f the organ ­
g thumbnail
whieh living

o many vital

f elsewhere.

:e of a vision

body whose

ture. In this ,

r the eontin­

sueh.
 '1'
1,

-------

WHAT LUBE GOES INTO

for ;
anal
play
ther
entl,

drea
desil
hadn

A 19'
pedd
delie¡
pene!
distir
multi
need
Juicy frui t does I
sexua
Before turning to the bottle, 1 found my lube of choice in a poem: Christina Rossetti's the ba
1859 CobIin Market. It concerns two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, who find their simple ways visual
t hreatened by goblin merchant men selling luscious exotic fruits that make the eater more
desperate for more but deaf to their sellers. Lizzie resists. Laura succumbs, eats vora­ It
ciously, wants more, is consumed with need that leads "to swift decay." Lizzie goes to into al
buy fruit for her sister. The goblins say: eat it here. She wants it to go. In rage they attack con ter
her, smash the food al! over her body. She races home: "never mind my bruises / hug Puar a
me, kiss me, suck my juices." Laura does. It c ures her:

Swift fire spread throughout her veins, . . .

Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser Aame ... That's
we ca'
Fast-forward to when they are mothers telling their children the moral of the story: )'ou W
wet er
(TJhere is no friend like a sister hoto L
In calm or stormy weather ... and ca
(Rossetti 1862, lines 279, 467-8,507-9,562-3) yourc
otheri
To summarize a poem's plot seems contrary: the device so dr y and linear; a poem poetic to )'OU
in what exceeds even crazy plot points. But in 1980, during m)' second )'ear in gradu­ O
ate school, that's precisely where 1 found my lube. The antidote is th e poi son ? Lizzie says embJe¡
"suck my juices," Laura "kissed and kissed her with a hungr)' mouth" (p. 492) and the Consie
point is simple filialloyalty? The juice was in the poem, but the lube was also the poem kissers
itself. [ used its blatant homoerotics, not that any other student acknowledged it, to troJl inal K
 WHAT LUBE GOES INTO 527

for an advisor. While 1 really liked Laura­ just like 1 preferred Amy in Little Women,
another girl who loved pleasure, fuck the disapproval, said it , took it, lived to tell- I
played it like Lizzie. Here's juice on my outsides: it's all about sex in that poem over
there, lesbian contento Could 1 say that in Beth 's c1ass and come calling again? Appar­
ently so.
Later in dissertation years, 1 dreamed that Beth fed hot dogs to daughters that my
dream invented for her. She dreamed 1 brought a gay chorus into her daos . My own
desiring students did something with a giant wooden spoon that 1 kind of wish they
hadn't told me about.

Product placement

A 1992 ad in Parade magazine for Gynemoistrin extended my scholarly interest to lubes

peddled by humans. Gynemoistrin, the ad says, is especially designed for "a woman's
delicate vaginal area." It doesn't name the comparat ive orifice, which might call up anal
penetration as sexual, or ask you to think about the extent to which "delicate" acc urately
distinguishes this hole or might instead function as pseudoscientific drivel designed to
multiply product need. (Thanks for offering one of your blue disposable razors , but 1
need to buy the pack of pink ones for the delicate womanly skin on my legs.) But the ad
does use the image of a harem denizen, Ingres's Grand Oda]¡sque of 1814, to locate the
sexual buzz and obfuscation in an exotic mysterious elsewhere. Reclining, seen from
¡ Rossetti's the back, she turns her head to face us with a mysterious look. There's a slightly risgué
¡mple ways visual joke here: perhaps she's thinking about vaginal dryness. There's a joke for the
e the eater more perverse in our rear view.
, eats vora­ It's a joke, however, with guestionable politics. Perversion is great, but r erouted
zie goes to into an enslaved "oriental" woman? "So you like sky scrapers, Osama Bin Laden?" reads
theyattack contemporary vengeance prose: anti-Arab, anti-gueer, feminizing as punishment (see
Jises / hug Puar and Rai, 2002).

Greasy no matter the hype

That's the thing about lube. On the one hand, as my friend Debbie succinctly put it, as
we commiserated about dykes who disdain lubing their cocks for pussy, lube ca n get
~ stor)': you where you want to go. Far from heralding studly failure­ can't you get the girl
wet enough? -having a boule as a nightstand fixture is simultaneously chivalrous and
hoto Lube can get you into some places you would be hard pressed to enter without it,
and can sometimes get you better to where you could have gone anyway. It can enhance
,2-3) your choices of size, move, hole, position, and partners (ageist and ableist as it is , am ong
other ists, to reguire girls to manufacture our own vaginallubrication in response even
oem poetic to you r skillful advanees) .
r in gradu­ On the other hand, just when you think that you are using lube to advance or cven
, Lizzie says emblematize your own desires, you may discover how much you are being handled.
)2) and the Consider Astroglide. It used to be the glorious lube of perverts, with gender-ambiguous
) the poem kissers on the bottle signaling it as the queer and stylish alternative to the dreary m edic­
:l it, to troll inal K-Y. Having Astroglide suggested a certain commitment to pleasure, maybe
 ,1'
--- - -

528 WHAT LUBE GOES INTO

per verse pleasure, especially, before www, if you lived a di stance from queer urban­ mee
ity. At least that's what 1 thought until 1 fou nd an article in Glamour, around 2000, that adO!
advised women plagued by vaginal dryness to buy Astroglide in the "family planning" mon
section of their local chain pharmacy. Who knew? No queers that 1 canvassed. But there coul
it was, albeit packaged in de-queering abstraction. (The kissers still serve selected mar­ marl
ket s, like women-geared sex shops such as Toys in Babeland or Good Vibrations.) Inter­ puts
est ingly enough, CVS had super-sized bottles. What does it mean for the dimen sions of cient
jamily when lube goes "family-sized?" 200!
An)'wa)', Astroglide's really not so glorious if )'ou read the fine print. It usually con­
ta ins glycerin. Probe does, too , glossing it seductive!y as "a sweet liquid derived from ínter
plants." That's understandable: it certainl)' sounds better, if no more organic, than "risk is gn
of )'east infec tions." Less clear is why Probe di stracted attention from the manly conno­ the fl
tat ion s of its name for the sake of featuring "Natural Citrus Preservative" in large letters
on the front of its bottle. Between "preservative" and the notoriously unregulated super­
market word "natural," it just seem s sketch)'.
Meanwhile, it's K-Y that now aims for sexy first. Ky.com offers soft- core sex advice
for usi ng its premium line, Intrigue TM: "Discovery ... can be as tame as bringing your For d
fa vorite silk scarf to bed, or as risqué as investing in a new guidebook or a new to)' JackíE
that you both fee! comfortable with." Investment, guidebook, comfort, your scarf; the Choni
sheltered woman as tourist to her na ti ve temptress. But why bother trying to extract even e
con notation ? The site also offers its preferred interpretation of the lube's name, which
"conjures up images of sex ual adventure," its bottle design, "at once sensual and ergo­
nomically satisfying," and its "Feel ," which is enhanced by "Blissful LIQUIM ER ni Tech­
nology." One needs to look e!sewhere to find the les son in knotting sil k scarves sa fe!y
that Intrigue's imagined consumer surely needs or the not-so blissful -sounding ingre ­ Dannei
d ients of LIQUIMER ni: dimethiconol and dimethicone, used also in sunscreens, hair
conditioner, and, when dimethicone meets silicon dioxide, Gas-X. Mmmm. (However,
as the Coalition against Toxic Toys (http://badvibes.org/) explains, silicone should (
absolutely be considered the most appetizing ingredient if you want to avoid sex to)'s Puar, J
d
that m a)' leach toxic chemicals.)
Rand,I
Rossett
e
Sli ck moves si

Because of both what it allows and where it foil s the illusion of free choice, l find in lube
a great metaphor and mode! for activist cultural work. During m y early encounters with Erica
Goblin Market, l understood analyzing the poem to epitomize the purpose of academic Art and
criticism, and my use of the poem to troll for an advisor as a perverse activity to the side
of, if, for me, necessary to it. Now 1 think we should scoop into the intellectual pro­
ject the possibilit)' of using cultural products to initiate work that aims not to explain
th ern-nor to pursue the common two -dire ctional path where objects illuminate con­
texts which illuminate objects- but to enact, accomplish, or anal)'ze something else.
It's a little like buying lube in the "family planning" section vvhen you are not planning
to stick it into the "family planning" hole.
l began thinking about lube this way during a project on the ElIis Island Museum
(Rand, 2005) as 1 tried to deal with the weirdness of a detention center turned tourist
site . The ride can be rough where entertainment meets incarceration, where the past
 W H A T L U B E GOE S 1N T O 529

.rban­ meets its marketing, where historical photos of migrant detainees eat ing mystery meat
i, that adorn the Aramark-run snack shop. You cou ld follow the path sl icked up for yo u: take a
lning" moment for sober contemplation, then order the vaguely ethnic "nacho grande." Or you
there could slick up nearby where they don't want to send you. Maybe you' d learn that Ara­
1mar­ mark 's emplo)'ees likely can ill afford the price of admission, or that prison privatization
Inter­ puts Aramark in the mystery meat bu siness, too , with the same complaints of insu ffi­
ons of cicnt, unhealthy, and un sanitar)' food that its p redecessors at ElIis faced (Dannenberg :
2006).
ycon­ Academ ic order: dinner before dessert, analysis before action, discipline before
1from interdiscipline, work before pleasure. Change d irection. Make better slick moves. l ube
11 "risk is g reat becau se it can get you where you want to go , even if, or because, it may g unk up
:ol1no ­ the furniture.
letters
super­
Acknowledgements
advice
g your For diverse reasons regarding lube and this essay, 1 thank Debbie Gould, Saw)'er Ston e ,
:W toy Jackie Parker -Holmes , Gina Rourke of the Nomia "sensualit)' boutique," and Yee Won
!rf; the Chongo Especially, 1 thank Elizabeth He lsinger, for being an advisor far beyond what 1
~x trac t even dared to want, fanta stic then and since. This is for you.
which
1 ergo­
J Tech­ References
s safely
: ingre­ Dannen berg , J. (2006) 'Aramark : Prison Food Service w ith aBad Afterta ste', Prison Legal News
1S, hair
17, no. 12, vol. lO . Available: http://www.prisonlegalnews.org/(S(tm41q145wa4vei2
¡wever , cr rojy iav» / displayAr ti cle .asp ?a rticle id = 11 00 2&AspxA utoDetectCook ieS upp ort= 1
(accessed 5 Septembe¡- 2007).
should
Puar, J. K. and R ai, A. S. (2 002) 'Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War ofTerrorism and the Pro­
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Rand, E. (20 05 ) The Ellis lsland Snow Globe, Durham, NC , and London: Duke University Press.
Rossetti, C. ( 1862; manuscript dated 1859) , Goblin Market, in R. W. Cru mp (ed. ) (1979) Tile
Complete Poems ,!!Cilristina Rossetti, Baton Rouge , LA, and London: Louisana State Univcr­
sity Press , pp. 11 - 25.

in lube
~rs with Erica Rand
:ademic Ar t and Vi sual Culture, W omen and Gend er Stu dies, Bates College, Maine
the side
lal pro­
explain
lte con­
ng else .
.\anning

v1useum
1tourist
the past
 YESTERDAY UP ON THE STAIR
roor
guit<
acad
beca
prof(
istra l
univt
versi "
the g
other
warn
Iivin~
1
thing
famil '
wrapI
I apF
what "
believ
In 19941 started my doctorate and almost immediately ceased to work. 1 was the first see he
Ph D student at Keel e University to register on a theory-practice programme and as well F,
as writing a thesis I was supposed to make art, a formulation that produced a great deal of ofknc
disquiet in the academic establishment and , consequently, in me. To make matters worse fessor,
I was given an office in Keele H all, an old stateIy home which had been incorporated 11). '0
into the university, and, sitting at my desk, I wouId quite di stinctly get the creeps. Not sity, Ti
surpri singly my first year was a mess . I didn't know how to work and the few pie ces I wonde
attempted to make were not remotely successful. And then, someone told me a stor)'. her a n
Barbara Johnson, one of the clean ers at the Hall, related how sometimes in tbe If
early morning ther e was an ic)' spot at the foot of the grand staircase and that she knew m)'selJ
this cold was the presence of the dead Lady Sneyd. According to ber, the ghost of Lad)' hung i
Sneyd moved down the staircase, across the central hall and out, past my office, over the I plac(
formal gardens. She was apparently the ghost of a young woman with long thick hair and wax a
with no hands. When she had lived, Lady Sneyd had been ver)' proud ofher hair and she small
had brushed it continually. Her husband had objected to tbis as sbe was ofhigb rank and a stor
they had servants to perform such tasks. But she persisted and eventually, in order to been 1
stop her behaving in this demeaning vvay, he cut offber bands. Later, the university pbo­ A
tographer, Terr)' Bol am, told me anotber version of tbe stor)': that the 'Grey Lady' had ratheJ
maidservant who had brushed h r hair for h r and her husband had given her a choice: meO!
she could ither keep her hands or her m aid and she ehos the maid. woull
T hat year, the English tl"anslation of Jacques Derrida's Specters 1 Marx was published stud),
and it provided me with a way to think about the Grey Lady. In traditional stories, decid
ghosts continue to appear as long as an initial inju stice remains unresolved. In response book
Derrida suggests that the)' act as a demand; that the living confront the legacies of the nelle<
past and the image of the future (like the ghost of Christmas Future, ghosts can always articl
come back). Understood in these ter ms a spectra l appearance always invoIves a 'politics took
of memory, of inheritance and of generations' (p. xix). I
 YESTERDAY U PON TH E STA IR 531

For me, this ghost was still walking, not just around my office but through all the
rooms of academia where female sexuality and autonomy continued to be heavily if not
quite so dramatically limited. In Britain in 1994 it wasn't unusual to be the only woman
academic in a department and while female students were in a majority, the numbers
beca me increasingly skewed in men's favour thereafter. Less than 4 per cent of British
professors were women and they were also severely under-represented in senior admin­
istrative and research positions. In consequence women had comparatively little say in
university decision-making processes. Perhaps even more fundamentally what the uni­
versity had historically recognized and validated as knowledge had excluded women on
the grounds that they, unlike men, were less capable of rational thought. These and
other embedded exclusions had largely stripped academia of female sex uality, physical
warmth, storytelling and rich, yet unscholarly experience. Academia was itself ghostly,
living a curious half-life.
1 started to research the story of the ghost; I made this intermittently immaterial
thing into my object of study. There was an extensive archive related to the Sneyd
family in the university library where I found an 18th-century collection of their hair,
wrapped in tiny annotated packets, but none of the archival material supported the tale .
1 approached other members of staff who worked in the Hall and asked them about
what they had heard or seen, but I got no further in my investigation. I didn't know ifl
believed in ghosts but 1 wanted to find out if this particular woman had existed and t o
was the first see her, to witness the spectre for myself.
e and as well For Derrida, ghosts do not belong 'to that which one thinks one knows by the name
great deal of ofknowledge' and, as he continues, it may be impossible 'for a reader, an expert, a pro­
1atters worse fessor, an interpreter, in short for ... a "scholar''', to ever make a spectre speak (pp . 6,
incorporated 11). While the tale of the Grey Lady spoke to a legacy of repression witbin the univer­
: creeps. Not sit)', rational academia could not acknowledge the possibility ofher appearance, and so,
: few pieces 1 wondering if I was being too much of a scholar to speak to spectres, I decided to m ake
ne a story. her a memorial.
:times in the I constructed an artwork in three parts. 1 took a double-exposure photograph of
hat she knew myself in evening dress standing at the top of the stairs, the site of the haunting, which 1
ghast of Lady hung in the same place alongside other Sneyd family portraits. At the turn of the stairs,
ffice, over the I placed a "vax sculpture made to resemble a memorial stone, on top of which lay two
thick hair and wax arms missing their hands, and a wreath of synthetic hair. The third artefac t was a
r hair and she small guidebook which contained tbree stories: the two versions of the ghost story and
high rank and a story of how, working at the site of her mutilation, I had lost the use of my hands and
y, in order to been unable to work.
niversity pho­ And still, the ghost did not appear to me. I had thought that working as an artist
rey Lady' had rather than within a traditional area of doctoral study, together with my gender, placed
1her a choice: me on the fringes of mainstream university enquiry, and I had hoped that somehow I
would be able to engage with this thing that had escaped the parameters of academic
was published study, that like the cleaning and technical staff 1 would be able to see her. Finally, 1
tianal stories, decided I would have her speak to me through other means, and included in the guide­
d. In response book were three pieces of automatic writing, purportedly Lady Sneyd 's words chan­
legacies of the nelled through me. These texts were an attempt to make the invisible visible and to
¡sts can always articulate what I did not know or have access to. The problem was that my own voice
¡lves a 'politics took the place of the ghost's and 1could not make contact with her.
Looking back 1 realize that l' d behaved like a ghost-hunter armed with tape-recorders
532 YESTERDAY UPON THE STAIR

and trip-wires. In waiting to see her, in wanting a sighting, I was looking for empirical
evidence of something that is not subject to hard proof. Insofar as they might be there at
all, ghosts are indeterminate manifestations; they can exist as a cold patch in the corridor, Derrida , J
a breeze when the doors are closed or a smear oflight in an old photograph . To try to rep­ InteJ
resent her and to make her material, to attempt to bring her into fulI presence was a mis­
recognition which rendered her even more elusive.
Yet, I had encountered the ghost. 1 didn't know at the time how to recognize what
my craw ling skin was telling me. 1 didn't imagine that my hands were cut off, the)'
were; it had taken me nearl)' two )'ears to make this first piece of artwork. Every time Tysorr
1 felt a sense of foreboding as I walked across the campus, into the Hall and m)' office, availa!
I felt the ghost. When 1 sat on my studio floor and let m)' hand trail across the paper I code=
wasn't mimicking automatic writing, I was producing it. 1 wanted to experience some­ 2 NewIT
demi c:
thing other than rationalism but I was too trained to realize that 1 could, that I already
educat
did. Being a scholar didn't exempt me from that experience; rather 1 couldn't grasp
3 Baty, 1
wh at my own experience was. Other academics seemed to have done this: once the
OnJin(
piece was exhibited the)' sidled up to me in corridors and told me about the sounds &story
of children playing, of scratching and crying emitting from empty rooms . The divide
between academic and non-academic knowledge was not absolute, it was just rare for
anyone to acknowledge its fracture. Fiona Ca
Examining the university, or any other professional organization, often takes the School of A
Eorm oE sociological anal)'sis or statistics . In addition to these things that can be grasped
we may also need a spectral, sensor y, emotional account of the organization. We ought
to r ecognize that our object can be encountered when the hairs rise on the back of
our neck in an unaccounted noise or in our sen se of unease. These are not just empty
res ponses, they are a form oE bodil), ethics, of protest, resistance or acceptance, they
are ways oE knowing an institution , of understanding a political situation. Our exper­
tise does not preclude our ability to feel , indeed, it can be premised upon it. In order to
be good academics, intellectuals, we have to ¡earn the patteros of a haunting, to accept
that we can speak with the voices of dead women and we need to listen to the stories of
c1eaners and technicians.
A question remains: does the ghost continue to walk? 1 could mention the sub­
sequent increase in the number of women staff whilst pointing out that we are dispro­
por tionately represented in the lower-status posts and on short-term contracts; that in
2007 only 16 per cent of British proEessors were women .1 I could discuss the contin­
uing pa)' differential, that male academics earo an average oE 5.5 per cent more than
the ir Eemale counterparts and, in extreme cases up to 20.4 per cent more, and that in
2008 researchers could not account for this disparity in terms of role, subject or insti­
tution. 2 I could note that women are disproportionately overburdened with pastoral
care and committees, that we are less likel)' to be recognized as research active and
that levels of childlessness among academic women are almost double those oE male
colleagues. 3 We could talk about how feminism has become rather passé, now that
wom en are considered, at least cosmetica lly, to have equal rights . But I could also,
simply say that I do see her, in difEerent cities and universities. When the chi lls run,
when the anxiety is high, that's her and she's talking to me. I listen . She says, 'I'm here,
you CQn feel me'.
 YESTERDAY UPON THE STAIR 533

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19nize what Notes

ut off, they
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n be grasped
n. We ought
the back of
,t just empty
ptance, they
Our exper­
t. In order to
ng, to accept
the stories of

:ion the sub­

e are dispro­
racts; that in
s the contin­
1t more than
:, and that in
lject or insti­
with pastoral
:h active and
hose of male
osé, now that
I could also,
le chills run,
.ys , '¡'m here ,
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11 1/\ l~Vd
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