CURATED BY ELLEN SULLIVAN

Jean Baudrillard, in The System of Objects, describes collecting as a means by which "the everyday prose of objects is transformed into poetry, into a triumphant unconscious discourse." Despite the abstraction imposed on objects stripped of utility, discourse persists because objects can never be neutral – they can never be divested of their obligation to external reference. This derives from the object-subject relationship, for we are the agents provocateurs who arrange objects, thus lending them the capacity to mirror our passionate intent. The Noir Laboratory Project attempts to examine the acts of provocation that, as in architectural production, transform urge to material reality. Agents in the laboratory work synthetically, constructing narratives, collections, through the manipulation of found objects, thereby giving proof to unconscious discourse.