Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Omniobjects as Teachers

I'm excited by the concept of the "molten temporality found in omniobjects." A beautiful and apt phrase; it conjures many images for me, and echoes the slippage between not only crude oil and plastic, but also inside and outside, human and nature. I am reminded of a profound text I have read recently written by Gordon Hall, a visual artist and writer. Their 2016 creative essay, 'Reading Things,' proposes a critical theory of reading objects as teachers, and as catalysts for remodelling our practices of looking. The theory calls on us to welcome the 'molten temporality' of objects; their malleable meanings, ambiguous functions and how they should really, if we read them closely, produce more questions than answers. 'Objects as dance teachers? As gym coaches? As lovers?' This living book prompted me to consider how omniobjects might collide with this theory, or more accurately, how they might melt and slip through one another. What can we learn from the many manifestations of these omniobjects, how can we treat them as an embodied pedagogy? Within the Age of the Anthropocene, we undoubtedly have objectified the living beings around us; plants, animals and even the sun, are understood only to the extent that they can serve our human systems. 'We learn only as much as we need to know.' As these theories permeate one another, I ask what we could learn from reading clouds as dance teachers? Monkeys as gym coaches? And lemon trees as lovers?


For further reading on Object Theory, see "Reading Things: On Sculpture, Gender and Relearning How to See" (2016) by Gordon Hall, for Walker Reader.

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