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cybernetic-security · 5 months ago

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Ross's List of Objectum (-adjacent) media

I'm occasionally asked on Discord for objectum media, so I'm making this list with stuff I've run into and recommend. This is anything with sentient objects or relationships to objects. I am going to apologize ahead of time that most of these are focused on architecture, since that's what I've mostly been hunting all these years.

List under the read-more.

Books (Fiction)

Your Cities by Anaea Lay. Short story. One of the main characters is dating cities and bringing them and their buildings to life. My absolute favorite short story of all time, not least because my beloved skyscraper plays a major character. Read it here.

I normally don't look at sentient ships in fiction because they are so common and usually aren't of my interest, but I make an exception if the story revolves around them. Turning the Whisper, short story also by Anaea Lay, has a sentient spaceship grieving and remembering his creator, one of the only 'machine-whisperers' in the universe. Read it here.

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks also has a colorful cast of sentient spaceship that I have heard high praise of but I haven't read them myself.

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott. A re-imagining of the Baba Yaga fairytale following two siblings in America suddenly receiving a sentient, walking house from their Jewish Russian grandmother. WARNING: The main conflict revolves around antisemitism. There are scenes of pogroms. The book does not pull its punches when discussing the horrors of persecution, including right at the opening pages.

Awakening to the Great Sleep War by Gert Jonke. This one can sometimes be hard to find. Stream-of-consciousness novel about an acoustic designer in a surreal, dream-like city, whose profession and training allows him to hear columns and iirc buildings speaking. The main character has a relationship with a column around the end of the book.

Not quite as stream-of-consciousness, but even more chaotic, is The Kraken by China Mieville where one of the main characters is a detective who can sorta speak to inanimate objects. Although with how much is going on in this story it might be a little dwarfed by the other zaniness.

Day 9 by Robert Jeschonek. Between a story of three people trying to find a guy and evade a serial killer, the Sagrada Familia cathedral muses and self reflects and looks forward to the future.

Desire and Dust by Roee Rosen. A small, academic collection of stories/artworks/etc. from Russian authors that mainly focus around objects coming to life and having relationships with humans. Be warned: the first work in the collection is a vent piece against Vladimir Putin, and includes cannibalism and sexual assault. The book goes into NSFW territory throughout.

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. A boy suddenly starts hearing the voices of objects after his father dies, and his mental state quickly spirals with lack of support and understanding. This goes to dark places with mental health, but the book ends well.

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin. Six people become New York. Literally become the personifications of New York. N. K. Jemisin is one of the best science fiction authors of this decade, go read her work.

On that note, the Skyscraper Throne trilogy by Tom Pollock has the city of London alive and doing young adult urban fantasy schenanigan business, including facing off against the god of cranes who represents gentrification. One of the main characters hunts down a sentient train at the beginning of the novel. Somehow no building characters but it's not like this list is hurting for them.

The Towers Trilogy by Karina Sumner Smith is an adult fantasy/urban fantasy story about two cities segregated between magic users and non-magic users, and involves living skyscrapers powered by magic in the later parts of the first book and throughout the second and third book. While the premise is a bit cliche, it's good.

The Employees by Olga Ravn. The human crew of a spacecraft get enamored by The Alien Cubes (tm) that they picked up on a mission. This is set by a series of vignettes showing different perspectives by humans and robots that man the ship.

Twisted! by Miranda Leek. Roller coasters come to life as monstrous defenders of the theme park. Apparently it is a bit mid but enjoyable.

The Tallest Doll in New York City by Maria Dahvana Headley. Short story where the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building kiss. Read here. Also if you wanna see more spicy building romance, check out the cover of Delirious New York (!!NSFW!! or at least coming close to it. I would not open this at work even if there's nothing explicit) written by Rem Koolhaas and illustrated by Madelon Vriesendorp, who later made her cover artwork into a short film.

Rootabaga Stories: The Two Skyscrapers Who Decided to Have a Child by Carl Sandburg. Self explanatory. Sandburg is one of my favorite poets of all time go go go go read his work. Read the Two Skyscrapers here, and also read his poem about a skyscraper and how it's alive and a poem about how a skyscraper loves the night. I hate to assign modern labels to old dead people but I feel like Sandburg would have been objectum were he alive today.

Also go read the poem The Turbine by Harriet Monroe. The machine is unnamed and unidentified, only so much that it is an industrial machine, but this poem has quite an objectum vibe to it's main character/narrator. Read it here.

Also a poem, and kinda really hard to find in any official capacity, but ship-lovers have The Subject, written by R A B Mitchell, about the warship HMS Warspite that he served on. Here's a way to find it, but you gotta scroll down half a page.

Everyone and their object companion probably already knows about this one but House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Unexplainable house that does some freaky geometry business. Best damn horror I have read.

Also covering my bases here with Christine and The Shining, both by Stephen King. Books more so than the movies. Evil car and evil hotel respectively, though you could probably argue until sunrise whether the objects themselves are animate and evil or if its the human ghosts haunting them.

Citizens of No Place: An Architectural Graphic Novel by Jimenez Lai, is a short experimental manga-esque comic musing about the state of architecture and its possible future and criticizing the current path of society. One of the chapters has a character in love with an architectural form. Many thanks to Creatures Are Stirring (mentioned below) for finding and mentioning this. Can be found here.

The Dream of Houses by Wil McCarthy is a sci-fi short story set from the perspective of a friendly smart home as their owner goes through the Worst Day of His Life. It's... a little outdated in the sense of it's hard to look at the sci-fi society McCarthy writes about and take it with the optimism it was supposed to have, but it has some interesting ideas in it. This story does not exist anywhere online, but I have digitized it on my own end. Since it's almost 30 years old and out of print, feel free to send an email to me if you want the digitization.

Les Autos Savages, a short story collection by Folio Junior Science Fiction. Many of the stories in here have sentient/sapient cars as the main characters and comment on the complicated relationships humans have to cars, both good and bad. This is in French, but @drinkingasoline has translated a few of the stories. Thank you btw Crispy for finding this!

There's a short story I keep losing the name of, but if anyone can find it I would graciously appreciate being reminded of its title. It's a vignette set in a broader fantasy universe, and the main character is a human changeling brought over to Fairy New York. The vignette deals with the main character visiting the NYC library, who is personified into a genius loci along with being the building himself. This guy inspired my own building characters so I would love to read about him again.

Books (Non-fiction)

Creatures are Stirring: A Guidebook to Architectural Companionship by Joseph Altshuler and Julia Sedlock. While this is geared more toward architects than the general public, if you want to dip your toes into animist theory and praxis (for lack of a better term) this the best starting point so far, and these two authors are names to know. Both authors are confirmed to be objectum friendly, though this book does not explicitly mention or discuss objectum people. If you don't want to read the entire book but want to hear one of the authors summarizing his thoughts, see the video Are Buildings Alive? hosted by Stewart Hicks interviewing Joseph Altshuler. Viewable here.

On the Animation of the Inorganic by Spyros Papapetros. Really, anything Mr. Papapetros has written if you have the stomach for dry, high-level academic analysis. Fantastic book wrapping up arts, philosophy, and a bit of culture in a discussion of animism, but it's written in esoteric academic-speak making it inaccessible, and specifically is looking at 1880s-1940s time period. Does not reference objectum people directly but does occasionally mention the "erotic power of objects".

Both of the above books are exhaustively sourced, so you can find jumping off points for your own research. They are architectural theory and will be almost exclusively focused on architecture, although On the Animation occasionally briefly discusses other things.

Monsters of Architecture by Marco Frascari. Maybe. Another architecture theory book, and one I haven't read thanks to how difficult it is to get a physical copy. Putting it here mostly in case anyone else is as ravenous for animistic theory as I am.

There is a book that looks at agalmatophilia (statue-lovers) that I am aware of, but I heavily do not recommend it as it is hostile toward objectum folk. If you want the name of the book for research or something, send me a DM. I also probably should mention that Erika Eiffel has her biography somewhere but 1) it's in Finnish (iirc?) with no English translation available, and 2) I am not comfortable supporting Erika/her book.

Films

Chairy Tale by Norman McLaren. Also, by the same guy, Opening Speech. Short films. A chair/microphone misbehaves around a man. Chairy Tale ends well for the object, Opening Speech... not so much. I adore McLaren's work, go watch them here (Chairy Tale) and here (Opening Speech).

Roof Sex (!!NSFW!!) by PES. Two couches. A roof. No one around. Really, most of PES's work, although thankfully most of PES's films is safe for work. Roof Sex is just the most obvious one of the bunch. PES himself comes off as having an animistic bent + connection with objects in interviews but I am cautious to call him anything more than that.

Another one everyone here probably already knows of, but Encanto, directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush. The house. She is alive. And very expressive and friendly. Very good Disney film following a family with super powers but dealing with generational trauma and high expectations. The house is called Casita and is pretty much the best friend of the main character.

Her directed by Spike Jonze. Well known film but covering my bases. A man falls in love with an AI operating system.

AI Love You, directed by David Asavanond and Stephan Zlotescu. Thai film where buildings all have AIs put in them, and one of the buildings falls in love with a human that lives in him. The movie isn't a masterwork of art, it's cheesy as hell, but it's incredibly fun. We deserve mid-but-fun movies.

Titane, directed by Julia Ducournau. This one's for all of the mechaphiles out there. I haven't watched this one either but the main character has a baby with a car. The main character is also the villain so be aware of that.

Jumbo, directed by Zoe Wittock. Human falls in love with a theme park ride. This is directly an objectum story. I haven't watched it myself (somehow...) but a friend has mentioned that it contains sexual assault, coercian, parental abuse, and apparently it ends sadly :(

Monster House, directed by Gil Kenan. Self explanatory and everyone here's probably already heard about it.

Just gonna mention Electric Dreams by Steve Barron to cover my bases but I don't think you can get by a week in the objectum community without having heard of that film.

Home Sweet Home by S. Paccolat, A. Diaz, P. Clenet, and R. Mazevet. A suburban home uproots itself to go on an adventure. Can be found here.

Autos Portraits by Claude Cloutier. Animated short film with a biting satire of car-dominated modern society, with a singing animate car as the center piece. NSFW! Thank you @drinkingasoline for finding this one.

Theater

Inanimate by Nick Robideau. Local woman falls in love with Dairy Queen sign. Rest of town doesn't approve. Ends well, but the main character has to deal with ableism and objectophobia. Recently played at Theatre Wit in Chicago. Nick is confirmed to be objectum-friendly and appreciates people reaching out. The script can be bought here.

Objects of Her Affection by Marsian De Lellis. Local woman falls in love with various tragic objects and reflects on her life. Content warning: this does not end well for the woman or the objects. Marsian is confirmed to be objectum-friendly, but the play uses a lot of dark humor and in general goes a lot of dark places. Watch only if you know you can handle it. Read more and see clips here.

Erika's Wall by Sophie Jaff. To be honest I barely know anything about this, it ran before my time in the OS community, but a song from the play survives. Listen to it here.

Other

Sentient ship-lovers, go listen to Julia Ecklar's Iron Mistress, about a pilot lamenting and praising her love of her spaceship! And also The Phoenix, about a human soul reborn into a space shuttle. Listen to Iron Mistress here, and The Phoenix here. Sorry that quality is so poor but it's hard to find good recordings of these things.

Everything is Alive podcast by Ian Chillag. The host interviews a score of inanimate objects. The elevator episode briefly goes into objectum territory on the side of the object. Listen to it here.

If you liked Norman McLaren's "Opening Speech", also check out this clip of ventriloquist Ronn Lucas having a bit of a fight with his microphone. See it here, with the timestamp set to start when he actually begins his act.

If you're wondering how I have so many reccs, I have been hunting objectum and machine-animistic media for over 10 years now. Waving hello at everyone who can immediately identify me based off of mentioning Your Cities and On the Animation of the Inorganic.

I'll edit this post as I find or remember more things. Please feel free to add to this through reblogs or make your own list!

Pinging @objectum-media to request these get added to the archive (also please add both Sense of Longing and Handle With Care on there if you have time).

Additionally: Some of these pieces are at risk of being lost since they are niche. If you've enjoyed any of these works, I would like to ask you to preserve it on your own computer or get a physical copy or what have you, so these things can come back even if they were to be removed by the internet. I lost an excellent play script about a man who befriended the Twin Towers because the author went dark and deleted all of his work, and I constantly lament that I couldn't save it. Keep circulating the tapes.

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