In ‘The Spell of the Sensuous,’ David Abram describes a primordial state of being when humans naturally possessed “the intuition that every form one perceives is an *experiencing* form, an entity with its own predilections and sensations.” It followed that we understood ourselves in relation to and reciprocity with all things animate and inanimate that shared space with us. Our framework for knowing the world—psychologically and sensuously– was one of interconnectedness.

Unfortunately, in most parts of our small planet, it hasn’t been that way for a long, long time. Holistic ways of seeing and knowing just aren’t possible through the fast lens of contemporary society.

Today, however, the work of several young designers is establishing new connections with the objects that surround us. Berlin art student Monika Hoinkis proposes slow objects that are as dependent on the user as s/he is on them: a lamp that begs to be cradled in a cupped hand, an umbrella that stays up only with help, a radio that functions solely in close proximity to a warm body. Meanwhile, London collective Raw Nerve have made a slow sofa that invites people to engage with stories and secrets of its former life through images, words and sounds imprinted on its surfaces and embedded in its folds. And in Rotterdam, Simon Heijdens has created products and environments that are “alive and talking,” physically evolving as they reflect the presence and impressions of people who have related to them in some way. These unique projects unlock new ways of ‘knowing’ the things we encounter in daily life, allowing for more intimate and expansive territories of interaction and experience, and simultaneously making the objects themselves more precious to us, less disposable.

On a slightly larger scale, slowLab has developed a tool to enable ‘slow ways of knowing’ the built environment, combining empirical observation with intuition, sensory seeing and imagination to unveil and allow deeper experiences of architecture and urban places, as well as the social phenomena they stimulate. As an individual travels through the urban landscape, s/he is challenged to view the artifacts encountered along the way not only as inanimate forms held at a distance, but rather as (in Abram’s words) “experiencing forms” that exist in some relative state of symbiosis with him/her. By understanding objects and places through more intuitive and imaginative ways of knowing, new possibilities begin to emerge; for example, it becomes possible to understand how the thing observed came into being, as well as to envision what it may become in the future, either left alone or by virtue of some imagined design intervention.

slowLab is presenting several opportunities for ‘slow ways of knowing’ in the coming months. In April-May, we’ll enable slower readings of industrial artifacts in Bristol (UK) as part of the Nova Arts Group ‘eleven minutes’ project . And late summer in New York (USA), will present ‘Private Times in Public Places,’ an urban walking tour designed by composer Christopher Tignor.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 20:26 and is filed under Art & Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.