"A number of key features of the cine–thing begin to emerge from these related articulations. (1) Cinema is understood to grant an expressive and animated life to the normally inanimate thing. (2) These newly enlivened things stand to challenge the usually dominant position of humans with respect to the world of things; they become themselves 'nearly homogenous with man,' 'characters in the drama,' or 'the hero in most any sort of photoplay.' (3) Their personalities or physiognomies suggest an unruliness and irreverence with respect to the audience and filmmaker alike. And (4) there is a sense that cinema's ability to grant life to the thing brings with it a new visual knowledge––that by isolating objects and removing them from their familiar contexts, film allows the viewer experience the usually hidden 'construction and nonhuman life' of things."
('brookhenkel' member of class blog for the spring 2009 thing theory seminar series at Columbia University)