Author Archives | jglenn
jglenn
Significant Objects Meme (4)
Obsessive Consumption: What Did you Buy Today? (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010), by Kate Bingaman-Burt, represents a selection of three years’ worth of the author’s annotated drawings of her purchases — including wedding bands, beer, a dog, and, of course, drawing supplies. Full disclosure: Princeton Architectural Press also published my 2007 book, Taking Things Seriously. Fast Company’s [...]
Continue reading...Announcing the SO Challenge: Spot the Patterns!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Years ago, when I was (briefly) a grad student in Sociology, at Boston University, I discovered that positivist science doesn’t offer satisfactory models for synthesizing a cluster of elements that resist reduction to a common denominator, generative first principle, or essential core. Significant Objects now faces this problem. Our efforts to organize our experiment’s data [...]
Continue reading...The Tool to Deceive and Slaughter
Thursday, March 4, 2010
We’ve mentioned a few other art projects that use eBay as a platform or medium. The idea-based artist Caleb Larsen’s A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter is a fun one. It’s a significant object — a sculpture, supposedly, though it looks pretty much like a black box with wires running into it — that forever attempts [...]
Continue reading...Significant Objects Meme (3)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
*** READ MORE about the Significant Objects Meme.
Continue reading...Significant Objects Meme (2)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
*** READ MORE about the Significant Objects Meme.
Continue reading...Hilobrow micro-fiction contest winner
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Last month, I announced a micro-fiction contest (about troubled and troubling superhumans) over at Hilobrow.com. The contest began on Jan. 26, 2010 and ended on Feb. 15. We have a winner! Matthew Battles, Matthew De Abaitua, and I selected Charles Pappas’ story from a pool of over 225 entries. Here’s the illustration we commissioned, for [...]
Continue reading...Hot vs. Cool
Thursday, February 18, 2010
In Marshall McLuhan’s pioneering 1964 study, Understanding Media, the Canadian philosopher, literary critic, and communication theorist argued that “hot” media don’t require much work on our part when it comes to determining meaning; “cool” media, however, require us to participate more consciously in that effort. “Hot” media are more sequential, linear, and logical than “cool” [...]
Continue reading...Only two SO v2 objects left!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Check it out. This Friday the 19th, we’ll officially wrap up the second volume of Significant Objects. This is your LAST CHANCE to bid on an object from SO v2, proceeds from which will be donated to 826 National. SPECIAL INCENTIVE: After the jump, a risqué, never-published photo of the Mermaid Figurine. Toy Airplane — [...]
Continue reading...Which exposition strategy adds the most value?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Our experiment has answered the question of whether narrative adds measurable value to near-worthless tchotchkes with an emphatic YES. But how does narrative do so? Is every form of narrative exposition, for example, equally effective in encouraging the reader to regard a thrift-store castoff as somehow meaningful? Apparently not. We’ve determined that in the 100 stories [...]
Continue reading...Wish List: Vintage Accutron “Astronaut” Watch
Sunday, January 31, 2010
If you happen to have one you’re not using, please consider donating it to Significant Objects. *** This is the second in an irregular series of posts aimed at raising awareness, among the Significant Objects readership, of the project curators’ wants and needs.
Continue reading...Short-Short Fiction Contest!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Over at Hilobrow.com, a critical-culture website that I coedit with Matthew Battles, we’ve just invited our readers to enter a science-fiction short-short story contest. We’d be delighted to have Significant Objects readers enter, as well. Check it out. CONTEST DEADLINE: February 15 (soon!) STORY LENGTH: No more than 250 words STORY THEME: troubled and/or troubling superhumans THE JUDGES: Hilobrow.com [...]
Continue reading...Significant Objects — the meme
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
There’s no doubt about it. A significant-objects meme has emerged in US culture, recently. I’m not just talking about Orhan Pamuk’s museum. Over at Fast Company, William Bostwick writes: “Maybe it’s the recession (it’s always the recession), but we seem to be going through a phase of self-analysis-through-stuff.” Here’s an ad for YLighting, from the [...]
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| Taking Things Seriously by Joshua Glenn |
Buying In by Rob Walker |
- Insignificant Object
- About the Significant Objects project
- Sanka Ashtray
- The future (?) of Significant Objects (Part Two)
- Wooden Animal
- Update: Significant Objects/Slate story contest
- Smiling Mug
- Cape Cod Shoe
- Project update: The first Significant Objects auctions have ended (much more to come)
- Another contest? Yes! Significant Objects X SmithMag's Six Words
- Rob Walker: Josh of course you're qualified! I pretty much sto...
- josh: I've proven myself to not be very discriminating, ...
- Allison: I think it's a fabulous idea. I'm a teacher and w...
- Erika Ofstad: I have to agree with Petter Slyngstad.“The Egg Whi...
- Ramon Collins: I like everything about Meg and her stories. But S...
- Shout-out from Girls Write Now
- The Kasper Hauser Four-Part Story, all in one place
- Significant Tweets for Week Ending 2010-03-14
- Experimental fictions of the Web: Your thoughts?
- “Brass” Pitcher + Kasper Hauser Story, Part 4
- Significant Objects Meme (4)
- Toy Bronco + Kasper Hauser Story, Part 3
- Shout-out from 826 National
- Gaucho Tray + Kasper Hauser Story, Part 2
- Pencil Case + Kasper Hauser Story, Part 1
* S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now
- Amanda Eyre Ward
- Ben Greenman
- Benjamin Percy
- Blake Butler
- Brian Evenson
- Carole Maso
- Charles Baxter
- Damion Searls
- Dan Chaon
- Dan Klein
- Dan Piepenbring
- Dara Horn
- David Levine
- Duane Swierczynski
- Helen DeWitt
- James Reichmuth
- Jennifer Weiner
- Jenny Offill
- Jim Hanas
- Jim Shepard
- John Reichmuth
- John Wray
- Justin Taylor
- Katie Hennessey
- Kirsten Miller
- Lakin Khan
- Lance Gould
- Maaza Mengiste
- Marisa Silver
- Matt Brown
- Matt Sumell
- Miranda Mellis
- Padgett Powell
- Peter Rock
- Rick Moody
- Rob Baedeker
- Ron Currie Jr.
- Scott Jacobson
- Stephen O'Connor
- Susanna Daniel
- Trinie Dalton
- Wesley Stace
S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT
- * CLICK HERE for all 100 authors from SO v1
- Annalee Newitz
- Ben Greenman
- Ben Katchor
- Bruce Sterling
- Cintra Wilson
- Colson Whitehead
- Curtis Sittenfeld
- David Shields
- Doug Dorst
- Jonathan Lethem
- Kate Bernheimer
- Kurt Andersen
- Lydia Millet
- Matthew Klam
- Matthew Sharpe
- Meg Cabot
- Merrill Markoe
- Myla Goldberg
- Nicholson Baker
- Rob Baedeker
- Sheila Heti
- Shelley Jackson
- Stacey D'Erasmo
- Stewart O'Nan
- Toni Schlesinger
- William Gibson
S.O. v2 — for 826 National
- * CLICK HERE for all 50 authors from SO v2
- Alissa Nutting
- Amy Fusselman
- Annie Nocenti
- Barbara Bogaev
- Bob Powers
- Carl Wilson
- Chris Adrian
- Deb Olin Unferth
- Debbie Millman
- Douglas Wolk
- Gary Panter
- Joe Lyons
- Julie Klausner
- Kathryn Davis
- Luc Sante
- Margaret Wertheim
- Mark Jude Poirier
- Martha McPhee
- Mimi Lipson
- Neil LaBute
- Philip Graham
- Rachel Axler
- Sam Means
- Sarah Manguso
- Tom McCarthy
- Wayne Koestenbaum
Friday, March 12, 2010
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