Stillness/Slowness: It Is Woven Like a Transparent Thread

Abstract

There is a kind of satisfaction in finding an object, as if it were a rare treasure just waiting to be discovered. This could be said in the case of trinkets, tchotchkes, and even natural treasures like a perfect piece of beach glass or animal bones. Surrealist Roger Caillois, in his essay “The Myth of Secret Treasures in Childhood” describes treasures as being “constituted by privileged objects” (2003: 255). Such treasured objects become intensified as they are imbued with one’s own wonder and meaning through individualized experience, and almost fetishized. Caillois highlights this yearning to reclaim the wonder of the things, which are suffused with memories and meaning. Karl Marx also contemplated the ways in which commodities had a fetish-power and sociality, where the social life of things superseded the social relations between people. Such fetishism, tied to the market and exchange, value ultimately does harm to the laborers who make commodities by obscuring their toiling and biopower (1992). Caillois was well aware of Marx’s warning about the fetishism of commodities, but still wanted to explore a different appreciation for objects and things—a privileging that considers the enchantment or magic potential things hold, the sociality of which is grounded in memory and childlike affirmation, not in consumption and exchange value (2003: 255). Out of my own curiosity for my personal and nostalgic attachment to objects, “stuff”, and small treasures, I have become increasingly interested in the shared and varied experiences of other collectors. This extends beyond the nature of collecting and into the objects themselves which, according to Walter Benjamin, undergo a sort of transformation that when taken out of circulation, are absolved of their original function and therefore are able to take on an entirely new set of qualities.