Educating the Blob

The last days of blob-at-home

2010-01-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

---Conversation with partner------

Me: You are going to have to let go of the blob soon. I'm going to take it back to Yvonne and the Object Research Lab.

My partner: I want you to ring her and ask her if we can keep it.

Me: I'll ask her but I'm pretty sure she wants it back.

My partner: Call her.

Me: I'll email her tomorrow.

My partner: No, phone is best. Ring her please.

Me: She will want it back I'm sure. It's her art thing.

My partner: I'll pay for it.

Me: How much?

My partner: I don't know.

---A few days later------

We have a New Year's Eve lunch and during the party, Noortje Marres, who will also be attending the Object Research lab event in Amsterdam next week, comes. After a while she tells me she has noticed that people find different ways to interact with the blob during the party.

Noortje: The blob is a thing in itself.

My partner: Kant's theory of aesthetics insists that the beauty of an object has no relation to its utility. Perhaps the blob does support Kantian aesthetics because it's beautiful but it doesn't have any practical function.

Me: I disagree - it makes itself useful in lots of different ways, without people noticing.

---A few days later, an email from me to Yvonne----

Presumably you would like me to bring back the blob - although my partner P wants to ask you if he can buy it because he finds it very useful and comfortable.

---Reply from Yvonne-------

would be good if you can bring the blob, i think we need him as a workshop participant, in the long term i will see that P gets a suitable replacement blob.

---Conversation with partner------

Me: She does want me to bring it although it will be a pain on the Eurostar and the train. She says she might get you a replacement.

My partner: No. Tell her me and that blob are very attached now and it won't be the same.

Me: I've noticed.

My partner: We could turn it into a backpack and put straps on it if you really did have to take it back.

Me: I have to go and write this on the blog now.

2009-11-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Yvonne

I am feeling a bit negligent. It has proved hard to educate the blob consistently mostly because I have been busy educating my partner, my daughter (now aged 2) and myself. And because I do not notice it every day. My partner, P, has something to say about the process of living with the blob too. He remarked last week that a friend came round and thought it was a cushion purchased with our sofa, since the colour is similar. P thinks I should not give you back the blob. He says they have bonded. Our daughter M still refers to it as "baby". He wants me to ask you if he can buy it so she can have a sibling. Although it won't grow bigger, it will change physically and the education could continue.

Here are some recent photos of the ongoing education process which involves the blob and M watching BBC's Cbeebies programme for small children. Every day. M particularly likes Waybuloo. We are not sure what the blob prefers.

Last night I told P that you had invited me to Amsterdam and probably I would be taking the blob back. He was disappointed. I also said I should probably take it to Oxford to give it access to the education you probably had in mind when you entrusted it to me. He seemed not to understand that it is an artwork and thought that around £30 for your materials costs might suffice. I said I should record the conversation and he was a little surprised until I pointed out that we were in an artwork right then.

Today I hurt my back and I have been in a lot of pain. This is me sitting on the sofa with the matching blob supporting my back. In this picture I look pregnant or rather I look uncomfortable like I was when I was pregnant.

Neglect

2009-09-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Yvonne

The first day or two was easy. Having the blob nearby, to be with and to think about being with, was novel. But then other parts of my life took over, the other humans and non-humans who have agency in my doings and goings. So the blob lay neglected for a few days. By now, the blob was lying in a doll's cot in M's bedroom. She did not pay it much attention either. I thought I had a picture of this but it appears not.

Then, I decided that I ought - note the ought - to move the blob to the living room so that it would be more visible in our day to day life. Why I thought this was the right room is not clear since I probably spend more time going in and out of M's room. But perhaps I had the idea that sitting the blob - like a guest (again) - on the sofa that would draw my attention to it.

Later I noticed that P and M were talking about the blob, again calling it "Baby". M offered to give it her milk so this is what the photo shows, a staged photograph of a guest object being offered a gift.

I am neglecting the blob

2009-09-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Today the blob has spent the whole day on the toy bed in M's room. We all ignored it. I was busy, stressed, anxious about various things. I ignored my guest, if it is a guest. I neglected the extra child, if it is child-like. I just forgot about it.

The blob meets the family

2009-09-08T11:15:00.001-07:00

Dear Yvonne

This is how the people I live with first engaged with the blob.

My partner, P, held it in his arms rather like a large baby. The blob you asked me to look after is sort of baby-sized, taller than a toddler but lighter in weight. One of the first things he did was rock it like a baby and he did this quite deliberately in front of our 21-month old daughter, as a provocation.

I think it was me who then put the blob in her small chair.

M seemed to think the blob was for her to play with. M played with some blocks around the blob. She also liked jumping on it which she does with pillows at the moment quite often.

P referred to it as a "baby" and she copied this naming convention. I call it the blob.

Later, P put the blob in M's cot and told it to go to sleep although it was the morning. She watched as he offered it some milk but then wandered off. Later we moved it so that she could go to sleep.

I noticed it matches our furniture quite well.

It started like this

2009-09-07T11:03:00.001-07:00

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