- Week 5 -
Objects, Memories & Storytelling
I found this week’s material genuinely thought-provoking. It made me question not just my relationship with objects, but also how those objects reflect—or even construct—my relationship with myself. In My Life with Things, the author reflects on how deeply objects intertwine with our sense of identity. She uses intimate examples—like her daughter slowly learning to love material things or her own attachment to “Banky,” a childhood blanket—to argue that affection toward objects isn’t something we’re born with, but something culturally taught. Through Marx’s idea of fetishization, she suggests that objects become emotional stand-ins for human connection, vessels where we project feelings that could have been directed toward people.
I’m still unsure where I land on this. Part of me believes that attachment or familiarity toward certain objects feels older than capitalism or Western consumer culture—it’s a behavior we’ve seen in our most distant ancestors, and even in animals. My dogs, for example, clearly have a preferred cushion or a toy they guard more carefully, even carrying it with them when they sleep. That doesn’t feel socially constructed; it feels instinctual. But I do agree that modern industries have learned how to exploit this harmless form of attachment and stretch it into unhealthy relationships with consumption, desire, and identity. What happens when the object doesn’t just reflect affection, but tries to fill a void? When buying becomes a method of self-repair? It’s strange how an object can be both innocent and manipulative at the same time. And still, most of us can remember an object from childhood that we keep in memory with warmth—proof that not every attachment to things is shallow.
From Harness Your Memory in Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit, I took away something that feels almost fundamental: memory shapes how we move, how we think, and ultimately what we create. Most of our actions—whether physical or emotional—operate from memory built over time. Creation works the same way. We don’t make from nothing; we make from layers of memory, from what we’ve experienced enough times that it sticks to us. And memory isn’t just individual. There is a collective memory shaping our creative output too. Every invention stands on top of an older invention, and what we build today will inevitably become a reference point for someone else tomorrow. Creation feels less like originality and more like a conversation stretched across time.
In Evocative Objects, Sherry Turkle gathers reflections from people describing their relationships with objects that, from the outside, might seem insignificant. Yet through each story, objects reveal their quiet power to hold memory, emotion, even conflict. They become mirrors, archives, extensions of ourselves. That made me wonder: in our digital age, can non-physical things carry that same emotional gravity? Can a folder on a desktop, a saved message, or a digital picture hold the same weight as a worn-out childhood object you can still touch? Or does emotional attachment require something that ages with us—something that can be stained, cracked, or physically carried? And if digital objects can hold meaning, what does that mean for the future of memory?
Readings:
- Sherry Turkle, Evocative Objects
- Elizabeth Chin, My Life With Things (Pgs 37-41)
- Harness Your Memory (Chapter 4) from The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Videos:
- Storytelling & Narrative (NYU Stream, GDrive)
- Pedro Oliveira on designing your own card deck (NYU Stream, Zoom Recording)