[Editors’ note: This week Jim Shepard, Scarlett Thomas, Ron Currie Jr., Helen DeWitt, and Matt Brown will give Significance to objects picked out for and donated to us by Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design for the Museum of Modern Art. As fans of her exhibitions ranging from Humble Masterpieces to Safe to Design and the Elastic Mind, we were thrilled to have her curate a week for us. Her statement follows.]

Curated by Paola Antonelli

I remember the day I realized that my computer — at that time, a Mac Classic — was not only alive, but also earnest and lovely. Granted, it was a bit clumsy, with cherry bombs popping up more often than not, but clumsy like a beagle — great company, unstoppable fun, only please make sure the good crockery is under lock and slip-cover the good couch.

That was not my first time and it was not the last. My home is my personal petting zoo. The street, a Looney Tunes movie where fire hydrants and traffic lights come alive and talk to me. I thank my lucky star for helping me find the right outlet for what could have otherwise become an embarrassing disorder. Instead of ending on TV with Lindsay Lohan as a risible example of pathological hoarder, I have become a highly respected curator of things. Not “stuff,” don’t you dare. They are always things, or objects.

Even “normal” people know that every object, even the humblest discarded clown nose, has a story. Actually, many stories. Stray objects bring us closer to understanding string theory by letting us know of all the possible turns history—hence, different dimensions and universes on branes—could take depending on the stories we project onto them. This small collection is my humble contribution to Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker’s endless quest to explain the origins of life in the universe, one object at a time.