“La performance des objets chez Simmel. Architecture, artefacts et interaction”, «Revue des sciences sociales» n. 59, pp. 110-115

Is it possible to speak of a performance of objects in Simmel’s work by considering his analysis of the way in which things, material elements and, in general, human products show themselves and act through their formal, structural, material and aesthetic characteristics? This is the leading question that the author addresses in this article. The notion of performance refers here to the action that objects exert among themselves and between them and human beings at different levels, especially by means of their external configuration and of their reciprocal arrangement. In this context, the article explores the possibility of reading in Simmel’s essays a conception of space which anticipates E. T. Hall’s theory of proxemics (Hall 1971, 1984). The author takes also into account the possible links between Simmel’s considerations on the relationship between beauty/utility/style in everyday objects or other artefacts, the notion of affordance and the behavioural dimension of design analysed by Donald Norman. Finally, the article addresses the possible implications of Simmel’s thought about objects and a wider notion of interaction in terms of inter-objectivity developed by Bruno Latour in his sociology of objects.