My Desk Prostheses

An exploration of living post-containment, focused through a desk

05-15-2025

Comb, usb charger, usbc charger, pens, tape rolls, handheld radio, journal, NyQuil and Dayquil gel pills, scissors, nuts and bolts, screws, sunglasses, receipts, cigarette filters, glue stick, doob tube, paintbrush, bottle cap, ring, UV protecter lens case, dslr battery charger, a secret letter, eye hooks, hair clips, belt loops, dongle converter, reading light, skin care, post it notes, lighter, ereaser, tissue, tea bag, credit card, wallet, bottle opener, box knife, speaker, hand sanitizer, gum, gum wrapper, mason jar, cork, candy, advil, white noise machine, tool box, mouth wash, book pages, portable charger, desk.

A mechanical nervous system limited to the objects that orbited the surface of my desk over the span of a week. Each day I tracked the objects I used from my desk to observe the way they participated as extensions of my biological body through their physical exchanges of use. After tracking each interaction throughout the respective day I recorded the object-body relationships through square compositions, placing each object in correspondence with the other so that final sculptures were a system of tools connecting themselves without the physical body taking space between them. In posthuman light, this study observes how the body is shaped by its interaction upon other forms, and in return so are the forms observed. This series does not exist as a substitution for the body but rather a view into a different kind of dialect of reading the self through material engagement.

Each square can be viewed as an independent system, but would not be itself if not a counterpart to the collection as a whole.