Last week’s Bogost reading was so damn beautiful I think I read it about five times. His discussion of lists was so well written and inspiring. It was one of those texts that articulates so many feelings that you’ve had for years but never knew how to communicate. I love coming across those.
I pulled out the quotes from the reading which struck me the most.
Lists, however, divide, or leave divided, the things they include. They offer only the relationship of accumulation…Lists refuse the connecting powers of language, in favor of a sequence of disconnected elements.
They [turn] the flowing legato of a literary account into the jarring staccato of real being.
Lists remind us that no matter how fluidly a system may operate, its members neverthe less remain utterly isolated, mutual aliens.
I was fascinated by his use of the word ‘ontography’, which I’d never heard before. I performed a quick google search, which led me to a few definitional pages. Amongst them was this definition: A description of beings, their nature and essence. The cataloguing of being.
I stumbled upon Bogost’s blog and found a post where he was discussing ‘exploded views’ as one example of ontography. He speaks about Todd McLellan’s book ‘Things come apart’, where he dismantles and captures elements of an everyday object (see the chain saw above).
I decided to try and capture this type of cataloguing, instead focusing on the materials required to make a cup of tea.
From Bogost’s book ‘Alien Phenomonology’ comes the quote:
Ontography involves the revelation of object relationships without necessarily offering description or clarification of any kind.
One object is simultaneously a part of another object and an independent object in its own right.
Bogost uses the word ontography as a term for composing works that help illuminate the existence and relationships between objects.
If I want to look further into this concept, this RMIT honours student’s blog has some great writing on ontography and object-oriented ontography (OOO).