Objects on Revolution. Towards Idiotic (Cosmo)Politics
Abstract
Things are depending on how we make them public. This is the inspiring argument that Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel activate in Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, an exhibition developed at the ZKM in Karlsruhe during 2005. This article, as a fake re-enactment, tries to reverse the order of factors to alter the product: the public is made by the mobilization of things. "Making the Public with Things" would be the counter-slogan. To show how things make the public, two objects, flags and bearings, will be subjected to a stress-test. Although differing from each other in terms of utilities and symbolic load, they resonate on the same cosmopolitical frequency due to the fact that, according to what Simondon calls their technical mode of existence, they detonate public materialities (Marres).
Downloads
Article download
Crossmark
License
In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Política y Sociedad is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.
