Spectrum Sorting

The observations from Spectrum Sorting revealed how perceptions and understandings could be shifted. The relation and tension between things and their placements constantly influenced participants to project their own perception onto things, thus making sense of meaning. Also, the freedom to move and reset boundaries, in other words, the frame of thought, enabled different interpretations and shifts in their understanding.

‘There you go again, thinking with things.’ The phrase stuck: That is exactly what we do. The “thinking” of this process is at a deep level not available to consciousness, as if there is an inner self smarter than the conscious one—a self whose mode of operation is nonverbal and on things. This thinking deals with crucial issues of identity and relation to others and the cosmos.

Pasztory, E. (2005). Thinking with Things: Towards a New Vision of Art, 21. Austin: University of Texas Press.

People’s memories and perceptions were fluid. When trying to make meaning and sense through engaging with boundary objects, things shift.