I Am Collecting Beautiful Objects: Michel Gondry’s Taxidermy of Emotions

Continuing both the examination of the materiality of objects and the employment of frameworks from contemporary art, this chapter by Jenny Pyke uses a comparison with taxidermy as an art form to explore the way that Gondry creates objects infused with affect, not because of what they represent but because of how they are constructed. Like examples of taxidermy, these objects both contain a material history and generate sensation through their feeling of hapticity. This chapter explains how objects in The Science of Sleep function not only as containers of emotion but also as points of connection between the lovers Stéphane and Stéphanie, who communicate and share their way of seeing and imagining the world through objects and build relationships in tandem with their construction.