MSz: We could certainly come to an agreement over the meaning of “technique”, but I am at a loss to pin down “poet”. Nevertheless, Simondon seems to convey his desire to consider objects and especially machines as living things. Didn’t he go as far as to claim that machines were beings that should have rights of their own? Stanley Kubrick, too, in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) allowed the machine to contradict the will of man. Long before that, objects were cherished as beings in animist religions. Instead of a one-way relationship between humans and objects or between objects and humans, it seems more pertinent to speak in terms of reciprocity and complementarity. Depending on type and presence, an object can be just as charged with energy as we are and can exert an influence on our behaviour, which will in turn influence our perception of the object. Through this dialogue, an object can keep you company or even take on a more important role. Over and above Simondon’s machines, technological objects have become the depositaries of our intimate selves. They embody our lives (and it is worth noting that, like living beings, they are never cold to the touch). Technological objects have become prosthetic limbs that we imbue with life, or perhaps the other way round – they