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Kitnick in the wasteland of a collapsing distinction between commodities and art. Hamilton Beach trading in the same nebulous affects of today's semio-surrealism. The reptilian effects of consumer language, our love for art becomes indistinguishable from our love of products. The product, kin art, become its packaging: images as totems for desire. The objects conjure a semio-construct, and we do battle with a hypnotic ghost manifested. The affect is the object. Basically the point is Hamilton Beach, et al. have entered the field playing high level game of avant-garde animism that art is trying to catch up to, conjuring spectres of occult need. I'm not convinced speculative realism has anything helpful to offer art (philosophy another question) that couldn't be deduced from some post-baudrillard semio-construction that seems to have gotten away from us, playing upon us. Not from the objects themselves but a symptom of a market ecology. I don't even know what this packaged object is, but I desire it, a unique piece of trash.
See too Michael E. Smith at Lulu , Sophie Nys at Crac Alsace , "Paris de Noche" at Night Gallery , Pentti Monkkonen at High Art , Yuji Agematsu at Artspeak
