object of the week

Snow globes are childhood’s wintery dreamlands, so powerful an allegory that they appear in films, television series, and commercials to carry spectators into a holiday happily-ever-after. During the holiday season, should a snow globe not be readily available from a nearby toy chest or shelf, you can download a snowglobe app for both iPhone and Android, transforming your quotidian emails and social media sites. The ongoing popularity of these iconic pop culture objects, now transformed to the digital realm, gives pause to ask: why snow globes?

After Rita Andrade’s post, I started thinking about objects that point users to other objects and the double layers of meaning this can reveal. Rita’s object was a text, and so is this one, but I wonder if they always must be? “Directions” and "instructions" come to mind, but I wonder if there are objects that are not print that point their user to use other objects?