In this issue: we summarize an essay, How To Do Words With Things, by French philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour. The original is presented as a fictionalized encounter that a future archaeologist has with an arcane object: the Berliner Doppelschlüssel (double-key). The Doppelschlüssel is a confounding object indeed: a large key with an unfamiliar symmetry, it has identical bits at both ends of its shank.
The Doppelschlüssel is a confounding object indeed: a large key with an unfamiliar symmetry, it has identical bits at both ends of its shank. As Latour jokes at the opening of his essay, it resembles one of the 'impossible objects' of French illustrator Jacques Carelman. In fact, this object is quite real and was in widespread use in apartment buildings in Berlin for much of the 20th century, especially in the period between the end of the Second World War and the building of the Berlin Wall.
In fact, this object is quite real and was in widespread use in apartment buildings in Berlin for much of the 20th century, especially in the period between the end of the Second World War and the building of the Berlin Wall.