Book excerpt: The interrelations between objects and organisms take many forms, from the microbes known to inhabit medieval manuscripts to the biomorphic forms observable in Art Nouveau lamps, and from the androids cast in American superhero comics to the coral found on Chinese porcelain recovered from shipwrecks. The contributions to this volume investigate various interactions between inanimate and animate matter in art, literature, technology, and other areas of human perception and expression. The book highlights how certain characteristics allow objects to be understood as living organisms, and vice versa. Via a range of dynamics involving vivification and reification, objects and organisms emerge as unstable, transforming within evolving situations. Innovative, interdisciplinary object-scientific contribution to critical ecology From the early modern period into the 21st century