Session 1. Thinking boxes

Conceived as a counterpoint, the first session of this seminar postulates that to better understand the materiality of the box, we must first look at its less material dimension. How does the box form extend to thought? To what extent, for example, does it shape the dialectic of container and content that lies at the heart of every classification and tree system? We’ll be looking back at the long history of logic, rhetoric and the arts of memory, as well as at current developments in taxonomy and computer science. In the same vein, we’ll be looking at how the box has been mobilized to think about the dialectic of the open and the closed. In thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, it has been used as a tool for both thought experiments and concrete experiments involving the manipulation of matter. Through these examples, we’ll also try to understand how, in turn, material boxes are shaped by reasoning and calculations, which will be discussed in greater detail in the following session.