It started like this

Dear Yvonne

I'm very honoured that you picked me to take on of your blobs to take home and look after. I think you said I should have it for a couple of months and that I should educate it. What I'm going to do is write occasional posts with some pictures showing you what your blob is doing, where it has been, with who, and how I have been thinking about the experience of engaging with it.

I've thought quite a lot about the session you ran at the CRESC's conference "Objects -What matters?" in Manchester, along with Emilie Gomart, Clare Butcher and Dieter Roelstraete. Social science may be having an "object turn" theoretically but it was your session on the Wednesday morning of the conference that first brought things into the room. The session I did with Nina Wakeford and Laurene Vaughan on design the next day also tried to take objects seriously as entities in the conversation.


Here are some photos from when the blob became my responsibility and the journey back to London. I noticed that Laurene started almost immediately to call the blob "he" but I said, no, I really want to maintain it as an it. We'll see.





I noticed a couple of times that I was worried about if it was comfortable - was it squashed? Anxious? It got its own seat on the train which was not full.






Then we went on the tube in London and I had to tie the blob to my suitcase. I felt a bit like it was a guest I had to take care of and explain where we were going. I guess it hasn't been to London before.




When we got to my road, I ran into a neighbour and felt like I ought to introduce the blob to her and explain what it was. However she didn't really notice it.




















When I got inside, the flat was empty. Being British, I needed a cup of tea so I sat the blob in my daughter M's high chair while I sat down next to it and had a muffin I had made a few days before. Again, I felt like the blob was a guest I had to look after.



















Regards to the Object Research Lab. More soon


lk