lives of objects
TRANSCRIPT
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THE LIVES OF OBJECTSa transcript of 5 interviews about objects and their
life in the lives of people
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ANNA CLAIRE SIMPSON
writer, musician & performer
On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you consider your
attachment to objects?
Probably because I was an only child and we moved
a lot as a kid, I think I developed a slightly unhealthy
attachment to my belongings, or certain ones at least,
and I tend to collect a lot of things which runs in
my family, my father collected books and
comic books and movies and you name it and
my mom collected antiques so I think I inherited
that trait.
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Imagine that your house caught re. What would be
ve objects you would take with you and why?
I guess the ve things I would save one would be or
I guess this is technically three or four things my
moms engagement and wedding ring andmy fathers wedding band. My parents divorced
when I was 5 and and I guess my mom carelessly had
given away her engagement ring and wedding ring to
one of my aunts in England and I guess a couple of
years ago I was on a vacation there visiting family and
my aunt sort of popped them in my hand and said
here I would imagine youd really want these more
than I would and Im glad she did because theyare actually, not only are they beautiful- they are
beautiful rings but they obviously represent
an important meaning in my life and my father
passed away about a year ago and I dug up in his be-
longings his wedding band from his marriage to my
mother so now these rings do kind of represent
a) someone that a lost and b) the relationship
that made me happen and other things I wouldrescue at this point would be a lot of photographs be-
cause that is really one thing you cant replace I have
a lot of photographs with my parents and my
extended family in England and I did actually
unfortunately loose a photo album at one point when
I carelessly moved some boxes -sorry I was moving
house- and left a box somewhere and it got swiped
and I lost a baby album of mine and that was the
one thing I cried about, I have no idea what else was
in that box but that was the one thing I knew it was
missing that was important to me and photographs
tend to be very important when someone dies
because its kind of the only visuals you have
left, so yeah, I would save as many photographs
as I could and I kind of keep them all in one
big box just for that kind of event, a re.
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Another thing I would rescue is a poetry book
that Ive had since I was a little child and my
mother used to read me poetry from this is A.
A. Milne who wrote the Winnie the Pooh stories and
poems and I suppose its kind of a symbolic item
for me more than anything else, just because I studyEnglish Literature and I write criticism and
I read a lot of poetry its part of that, and I guess
to me this book represents the seed where all
that started so this would be a big one and Id love
to be able to read these poems to my children
one day from the same book that, you know,
they were read to me from. And then I dont know,
i could debate a lot on another item so Ive got 1, 2,3... Another item that I think I might rescue would
be my dads ashes which I will grab and they are
in this big, heavy urn and I guess it would be kind
of a hard item to run and grab and get out of the
house quickly with but- part of me says I would res-
cue this but another part of me thinks I dont really
know what the point is because its ashes, my fathers
body was basically incinerated so it kind of representsdeath to me and to be honest I dont really look at this
urn ever and I dont touch it and I dont deal with it
it just sort of sits there as a decoration and I dont
really feel at this point I like focusing on my fathers
death but try to think about his life so that would be
a maybe but now Im thinking I wouldnt rescue this
I dont think its important. Then there is this
necklace around my neck, which is from Tiffanys
but its an Irish circle of life symbol and it was
a gift that my- a bunch of my family members
in England had chipped in and gotten for me
after my father died as a rememebrance and I
dont know, there is the urn and there is the necklace
and the necklace is supposed to be more a symbol
of life and its also a symbol to me of a joint ef-
fort on my familys part to try to comfort me,
make me feel better and give me somethingto remember my father by and that seems like
a life symbol to me as opposed to a death symbol.
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a piano is a big part of my life I can play
since I was 5 years old but frankly, I wouldnt
be able to do anything with it to drag it out
and on top of that the piano is all about whatI have in my hands and not the object itself
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Cant save my piano, thats a pretty big part of
my life too, but there is no way that can happen!
That would burn to the ground. A piano is a big
part of my life I can play since I was 5 years old
but frankly, I wouldnt be able to do anything with
it to drag it out and on top of that the piano is allabout what I have in my hands and not the
object itself so I guess I dont have an unhealthy
relationship with my piano, or an unhealthy attach-
ment. Those are probably the major items that mat-
ter to me the most, so I guess this is a good lesson and
I should keep these in one place, under my bed or
something. Generally speaking there is a lot of things
in my house I do have this tendency to collect butfrankly I have so many things that if something dis-
appeared one day Id probably wouldnt notice and
Ive had that happen where things were stolen and
a part of me was glad because all of the sudden the
responsability of owning it was out of my hands and
I didnt have to worry about the pain of giving it away
or selling it or something like that and therefore so
again, the responsability was on someone else so- thatis a non open invitation for people stealing from me.
Truth to be told though, being asked those questions
creates a little bit of anxiety for me about not only
which items I would choose but what kind of person
I would look like- Do I look like the person with
the sentimental objects? and therefore I just
look to the past? Or do I pick things that rep-
resent some big thing part of the now me? Or
the future me? Like I didnt pick any recordings
Ive done, any musical recordings because although it
seems like something that needs to be salvaged, I can
recreate that, its something that lives inside of me,
it has the possibility of being recreated. Something
about the objects that have a sentimental value and
are symbolic of the past, those really cant be recre-
ated so I guess thats why I tend to be a nostalgic per-
son, which is little embarrassing, Id like to be moremodern than that but there you go. That probably
sums up my relationship with objects.
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Could you name three objects that embody yourself ?
Thats a hard one. Embody myself. To be honest I
dont know if I can think of a single object that em-
bodies me, I think a lot of objects communicate
something about me the piano makes it obviousthat I play piano so I guess that is something I can
pick, speak to a big part of me, its symbolic of music
which is half my life, its specically the instrument
that I actually play but I dont think of it as embody-
ing me so Im not sure, I guess you can look at the
piano, a pile of books, I read a lot and I write a lot
and those things sort of speak of different parts of
me but I guess I feel less comfortable with isolating orselecting items like that, I dont know if I believe and
object can embody me, I dont know if its possible.
And if it was then probably everything in my house
would probably explain everything, every book I have
speaks to all the philosophies that I have in my head,
every old notebook from school, the way I process
that information, how I write and how I think, every
movie Ive watched or every DVD can be symbolic ofprobably everything Ive seen, my records, etc every
little piece will say something to that effect so I dont
know if I can isolate it, its either all of them or
none at all. Thats how I would answer that.
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something about the objects
that have a sentimental value
and are symbolic of the past,
those really cant be recreated so
I guess thats why I tend to be a
nostalgic person
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DAMIAN LAZARUS
dj
On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you consider your
attachment to objects?
I used to be a lot more attached to my belongings,
Im a classic collector of stuff but then when I
left London to move to the States I realized I couldnt
bring everything with me so I realized actually most
of the things I own are pretty material and not as
important as I once thought they were to me but I
have a lot of things that are of personal value, so in a
scale from one to ten, well thats a difcult one. Id say,
somethings are kind of...these days I kind of acquired
and actually dont mean as much as they do but there
is a lot of stuff I have that Ive been collecting over
the years that have very sentimental value so
these things denitely I wouldnt want to be without.
So you would say you are more attached to things
youve collected overtime than singular, particularthings you have around?
I tend to be more closely attached to things that Ive
found in a special situation or if there is a
specic story connected to how I found it or
what my favorite thing was at the time, its
weird because I am really attached to all my books
and records, my music but I think I could survivewithout not nding something and just replacing it.
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Imagine that your house caught re. What would be
ve objects you would take with you and why?
I particularly like this, this is a cape that a good
friend of minemade for me which looks pretty
special on, I think this is something I would like tosave because if she was to do this again it would prob-
ably take her a couple of years to make it again. I
would take my studio which is downstairs so I could
continue to make music. I would probably take this
album which is called Dreamies which I found in
a store in Japan and its an aural graphic entertain-
ment for use on your stereo headphones or speakers,
an incredible mental experience, 100% recommend-ed for a beautiful eclectic journey into your imagi-
nation, its produced in uid stereo- of course- and
Dreamies provide you with a new form of personal
entertainment a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
and the sound does give a splendid time and its made
by this chap called Bill, Im not sure if he put his name
on it but I do know its Bill something and he made
this in 1973 and its one of the rst albums touse sampling and its very trippy and really
beautiful and there is just one guy in his crazy
mind and its very good I just used two tracks from
this album for my Fabric album last year, so thats
that... and then Id probably take this book which
is the making of the muppet show called Of
Muppets and Men and its basically all you need
to know about the muppets the making of, the mup-
pets being my favorite television show of my
childhood and adulthood and I also possess my
own couple of muppets which are downstairs, but I
gured I probably get more joy out of the book
and the memories of the muppet show, which
plays a very important part in my life and
these days. Finally, on a sentimental note probably
take this lighter which is my grandfathers, a
Dunhill lighter, which I remember playing withwhen he was alive and a smoker and that is prob-
ably...that would be my bits.
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So I can actually put all these belongings in a
tiny little bag, which is a little bit sad, really.
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Could you name three objects that embody yourself ?
If you asked me that question last year I think
a pack of cigarettes would probably be one of
them but now that I have given it up Im really saying
I have no life...Ha! Three objects? Oh god. Generallytoys, you know my house is full of toys with masks
and statues and odd I guess creative objects
that have a hint of childhood, maybe a hint
of spirituality, maybe a hint of magic that is
something that is very prominent in my life.
Ive a massive audiophile so I guess my record col-
lection.
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VOULA DASAKIS
architect
On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you consider your
attachment to objects?
I guess I would be like a seven, I mean its hard for
me to let them go easy but I dont really feel like I
need them its like in the balance so I feel that makes
it a 7.
Where do you think that attachment comes from?
Well because its the stuff I use, and the stuff
I dont I get rid of after a certain amount of
time so it comes down to just the things that
I use, and so out of that its hard for me to let
them go if its something I use all the time but
I dont know, I still feel like its just stuffand if
I dont have it its not that big of a deal, its hard to
part with something, like your favorite kitchen
spoon because you use it everyday but are yougoing to keep it forever? Probably not. And if your
friend really loves it youll give it to them, you know?
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Could you name three objects that embody yourself ?
That embody me? Wow thats hard. I dont know how
to answer that. I guess it would be something out
of my kitchen. There would denitely be...I have
this wooden spoon that my mom used to useall the time, she probably even hit us with it, but
somehow, it was like out of the extra things I tood
THAT from her house and I always have that in my
kitchen so I think there is a lot of me in that. I have
this ring that I wear all the time that I bought
when I was in Greece and it was one of those mo-
ments where I was- my cousin and I, who is like my
sister, we saw it at the same time and we were likewow that is really beautiful and then after speaking
to the lady -this was a woman jewelrer who made all
this things, which is really unheard of in a place like
Greece where everything is run by men- and the one
that I picked had the bee on it and it was about
rebirth and I had gotten to Greece and I was living
in there for like 6 months trying to nish school and
didnt know if I should live there, have my dual citi-zenship and all, and so I picked that ring because
that is what spoke to me and that really em-
bodied why I was there at that time and so that
probably is one of those items that depicts a period
of time in my life but I think like it will...I mean its
really me, always. So that. My broken wooden
spoon and the ring.
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OSCAR MORAN
urbanist
On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you consider your
attachment to objects?
Very attached, maybe 8 or 9. I want to say its not ev-
ery object that I own but there are specifc objects
that hold a history to me and maybe Im a fetish-
ist about that and its just my life, my history.
I think about my grandmother and she holds
the biggest archive of things that I could ever
think aboutand I was a little kid exploring those
when I was young and maybe I hold that because
of that and I learned to hold and endear a moment
in life or whatever have you thorough these objects
and its not everything, I could do without this bed,
I could do without this credenza, I could do without
that chest drawer, but I could not do without that
mask, that picture of me and Raul, I could
not do without that picture of me and my fa-
ther, I mean there are just certain objects that are apart of my history that I need to have close to
me, wherever I go, for the rest of my life.
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I learned to hold and endear a moment inlife or whatever have you thorought these
objects and its not everything, I mean
there are just certain objects that are part
of my history that I have to have close to
me, wherever I go, for the rest of my life
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Imagine that your house caught re. What would be
ve objects you would take with you and why?
It would probably be a few photographs, and its
probably because I was born in an era before
digital photography and the memories that Ihave are printed of my mother, of my father
and even my lover when I had one for 8 years
in my twenties, there is no digital memory of
that, and thats why I would take those, because they
are very dear to me, because they hold, I mean you
can see them there, they are signicant to me. Ev-
erytime I see them, it reminds me of a person
that I was in the past that I am no longer butI am sort of, because we evolve but its dear to my
heart, so maybe it would be four or ve portraits that
I would run with.
Would those be your items? Or the photos are just
one item and you have other four youd like to talk
about?
Im very emotional, I think the photos would do it
because I am very visualand that holds a link to
me and my past and my history and I would just take
the photos.
The ve objects would be these photos.
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Could you name three objects that embody yourself ?
I think there are objects that I have created that
in a way embody me or stages of who I was at
the time, there are these lamps that I made in my
mid-twenties, I dont have any of them here I gavethem away, people have them and they hold them
dear, so in a way whatever my creation is would em-
body me. I also have drawings and paintings
that not a lot of people see and maybe I did not
say this in the previous question but I would probably
take those drawings with me, because they are part of
who I was and who I am and what was impor-
tant to me at the time when I made themand Iwould run with them along with my pictures.
What is it about these lamps that embody you?
The quality of the lightingand there was this...
When I made lamps, and I would like to say that more
than lamps the paintings probably represent
me more than the lamps but I just thought ofthe lamps because thats whats out there and
I dont share the paintings with everybody but
the lamps, being from Mexico and growing up with
this high end- low end reality everywhere you
go, the lamps where creations of a very true high in-
dustrialized society, it was aluminium pieces that I got
custom cut, they were assembled manually, so to me
it was a way of showing the reality of where I came
from, this mix between high industrialized, high end
mixing it with craftsmanship and so the beauty of this
lamps is that I could create something that through
light could show an environment that had a history
of the reality of where I came from which is that, and
the end product was polished and it was pretty but
there was always a little hint that it was hand crafted
and that it came from where it came, and that to me
was important.
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I guess for me the most important thing about those
lamps was the process, it was lamps, it couldve
been anything. It was the process and also a part of
who I was at that time in Mexico city and my history
more so than the lamp, per se. It was just a mode
of expression.
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SISSY AND EDDIE CHACON
musicians
On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you consider your
attachment to objects?
E- I would say a 5. Im kind of split down the middle
about this, I use to really feel like Sanson and
that my house was my power base and it gave
me great pride to have, you know, a beautiful
home, specially one that youve really put togeth-
er yourself, something that you are into. But after
going away for a year, and just giving it all up and
we lived out of a suitcase for a year I dont know I
learned over the last year most of the greatest joys
in life are about people and relationships not
things. An so Im split down the middle abou it, you
know. Its also its nice to go away but its also nice
to come back home and have our own environ-
mentspecially after sleeping in...we slept in 21 beds,
you know, we couch surfed a lot, stayed with a lot of
friends yeah, you really also see that, how other peo-ple would answer that question, you know you really
see how other people live and it was kind of amazing
that everyone sort of took us into their homes, I dont
know if I answered your question.
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S- I would say a 6. I love objects, I love things but
I think those things are replaceable and there is
always more, more amazing things to be found.
I would say six also because there is some objects
that... a lot of things just bring you temporary
hapiness but there are a few items that bringyou happiness over and over and joy over and
over and then you come home and you see that
piece that is very special to you and always
makes you feel tranquil or its comforting to
you and so a 6.
E- Thats a good point.
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Imagine that your house caught re. What would be
ve objects you would take with you and why?
S-My Iphone I think you would say the same
thing because we use it for everything, but no,
thats replaceable.E- No I would just say one would probably be my
hard drive and the reason why I say that its because
I have all my art, my art that Ive created, my
songwriting- so my hard drive for my songwriting
catalog.
S- Would we get the hard drive with all of our
pictures? Or are all of our pictures going to
the clouds?E- Well yeah hard drive would include...thats funny
because you could answer this with one thing, a hard
drive. Its got your art, your pictures, all the things that
you keep, or used to store in big boxes, this is a ques-
tion that is so affected by technology, its amazing,
yeah because, my art, my music, our pictures,
our memories, our documents, things people use
to put in those re safe boxes you know, the deed to
your house, insurance policy, things like that, is all in
a hard drive. Its funny how this answer has changed
because a few years ago there was a re in the neigh-
borhood and the neighborhood really almost burned
down. It was a huge re and we had to empty out our
prized possessions and at that point I took all
my gold records and we threw them all in the car,
these awards from my career and now, four years lat-
er, I wouldnt even grab those, cause I just dont give
a shit about those. I dont know what changed in me.
I guess they were these tremendous sort of...it was so
close, closer to the event, it was a tremendous source
of pride and it was all like ok cool. I wouldnt grab
those, this time. And we grabbed at the time, our big
at panel television, which is another technol-
ogy thing, they are not valuable anymore, so
I wouldnt grab that, grab the records or awards, Iwould just grab my hard drive with things that can-
not be replaced which is pictures and songs, pictures
and music, I guess you could say I would grab my art.
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There is some art around here I really love.
S- I think that painting over there.
E- I really love art. I love things that are
touched by the hands of another person, so
I value...my criteria would be take the soul-
ful stuff. Art has soul and all the other stuff like thiscouch who cares, it can all be replaced. I didnt give
you a number but...
S- Yeah. I think that piece of art there, I think I
wouldve answered differently before we took this
year on a trip. We schlepped around two big 50
pound suitcases each of stuff we shipped a box home
it took 6 weeks to come and we were worried about
it and then we were like what the fuck was even inthat box? we couldnt even remember what was so
important that we had to ship back.
E- When that box nally arrived I didnt even take
anything out of it.
S- It just sat there.
E- I dont even know why we shipped it! Its just
crap.
S- I need to look around a little bit... the big em-
broidery portraitI think I would take.
E- I would take your art. Things that youve cre-
ated.
S- Things that Ive made.
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