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For some time now, objects have been going through a rough patch. Consistent inflation of value, systematic deprivation of agency, and a profound identity complex. (Is there such a thing as a digital object? Does it come in a box? Does it keep in the rain?) Verb-wise too, things are not looking well on the object’s front. Both ‘to objectify’ and ‘to object’ carry a negative tone, to say the least. Traces of object fetichism fade away from language and disappear from consciousness: Georges Perec, Francis Ponge, Michael Fried, all find little resonance in post-colonial or post-internet discourse.

Objects are now calling for new representation. Not in the name of nostalgia or revisionism, but in the hope of formulating a new language of things, a reformation – a new objective, perhaps. The method is as old as the ages: ‘Take the most humble object, the most everyday action, and try to consider it afresh. Abandon every habit of perception, and describe it without any verbal mechanism that has been worn by use. And all this, not for some reason extraneous to the fact in itself (for, say, symbolism, ideology or aesthetics), but solely in order to reestablish a relationship with things as things.’