Every tools externalize our forces and capacities; they are hard. Our muscles, bones, and joints leave the body, as it
were, and are fitted out as simple machines- levers and hoists-which mimic their functioning. Our high temperature,
the source of our energy, comes out of our organism, and is fitted out as motor machines. The new technologies,
finally, externalize the messages and operations that circulate in our neuronal system-information and codes, which
are soft. Cognition, in part, is fitted out in this new tool. The new technologies are forcing us to leave the spatial format
implied by the book and the page. Inspired by the work of philosopher Michel Serres, Thumbelina is a figure with her
head in her hand. She no longer has the same body or the same life expectancy. She no longer communicates in the
same way; no longer perceives the same world; no longer live in the same Nature or inhabit the same space. She is on
a perpetual adventure. Her sense of belonging is no longer with a particular piece of land but with earth itself. Her
senses has been liberated. She is a purely experiential body. All skin. All touch. She is an individual who is unique but
also generic. An indefinite, decipherable cipher, open and closed, social and discreet, accessible-inaccessible, public
and private, intimate and secretive. The research project intends to give a spatial form to Thumbelina. A room for an
anonymous individual. A house that is globally aware and locally sensitive. A house that is a cross of a boat and a tent.
A house that uses new materials and technologies but at the same time relishes hands-on sensorial engagement. A
house that is woven and tattooed. A polychromatic house that can float on water and be comfortable on land. Better
still, it offers itself as a landscape. To sum up, project Thumbelina aspires for a new way of existing.
