The Age of Hyperobjects
Cole Bennette considers the links between his living space and forces like systemic racism and climate change.
Shifting Ground was an open call for visual reports about how the events of 2020 and 2021 reconfigured our relationship with both public and private space. Select entries were posted on the League’s Instagram account.
Cole Bennette sent reflections on the links between planetary forces and private domestic space as he quarantined at home during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Bennette wrote:
In the early days of the pandemic, I quarantined in a 580 sf one-bedroom apartment. As the world seemed to fall apart outside, my apartment provided a neutral reprieve from overwhelming global problems. In order to process the pandemic, the effects of capitalism, climate change, and racial inequity, I began to think about these issues through the lens of Dr. Timothy Morton’s theory of hyperobjects. Hyperobjects are things that are so large and saturated across reality that they challenge our notion of time and space. I decided to dissect my own apartment to see how these hyperobjects manifest themselves in a space as intimate and private as a home. These drawings are visual representations of the data I collected.
Biographies
(@enjoycocacolea) is an architecture student at the University of Texas at Austin.