A camera records the contents of a cardboard box. The live video feed streams on a TV set nearby, making the objects in storage the subjects of intense surveilance.
This type of inventory record aims to mitigate the estrangement we feel from the cherished things that we store out of reach. However, Meanwhile's representation of objects is vague and inexact compared to the metrics captured by traditional home inventory software. Are the compromises of this method worth the benefits? What might this archive look like on a large scale? How might it influence our attitude towards objects?
This piece elevates the status of the objects from mere equipment to items meant for prolonged contemplation. It's essentially an exercise in object-oriented philosophy – a crude proof that objects exist independently of our subjective perception of them. The box becomes a post-human parallel universe in which objects are free from the meaning and utility we attach to them.
Another version of this piece:
inventori is a series of artworks that re-imagine a home inventory record as a more poetic and provocative type of archive. These hybrids of personal artifacts and technology challenge humans to rethink their relationships with and philosophical understanding of objects. What's a home inventory record?
Objects are unique signifiers of human experiences. Collections of artifacts allude to stories that are greater than the sum of their parts. What is lost when these collections are archived digitally? View this piece ›
How far will we go to maintain a connection to our archived objects? When our cherished things are packed away, our separation anxiety can be treated with an absurd coping mechanism: a closed-circuit television feed of the inside of the storage box. View this piece ›
Two toys are caught in a loop of mutual surveillance. Their technological prosthetics give them a literal point of view. With this, the objects themselves become the archival mechanism. View this piece ›