There are two ways of looking at the objects we wish to contrast: as extensive, stable, and inventoryable bodies, and as processes that unfold over time. When viewed solely in terms of their materiality, objects make up the homogeneous structure of everyday life, made up of automatic gestures and repeated uses. The aesthetic presentation, however, shifts the gaze to the way in which a banal fragment—a stairwell, a trivial route—intensifies in a privileged moment. The aesthetic experience occurs in the blink of an eye: it does not add new matter, but suspends for a moment the opacity of everyday life and brings out a meaning different from the usual. The world thus ceases to be an aggregate of extensive objects, a still life, and reveals itself as a web of events in continuous composition. The thing ceases to be the meaning of the object. What is seen exists in the time of the opening of the gaze itself, only to disappear, perhaps not entirely, when the gaze closes. 

The conference cycle "On the Art and Poetics of Objects" invites five speakers (in individual sessions spaced over time) to present reflections on themes surrounding the importance of objects in their utilitarian, symbolic, and material dimensions.