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Does the perception of the everyday change when it is presented from an unusual perspective through shifts in scale or proportion — that is, by enlarging or reducing the size of everyday objects in relation to the viewer? This essay explores the potential transformation of domestic objects through consideration of a selection of works from the exhibition ‘The Everyday in Dramatic Closeness’, on view at ICI Berlin at the turn of 2025–26. It highlights how the exhibition sought to question perceptions and expectations of everyday life and to shed light on moments in which the everyday is perceived as unfamiliar or weird.
Keywords: everyday life; domestic objects; dramatic closeness; change of size; zooming in and out; perception
Part of Scale Containing:
Diagrams / Filippo Bosco, José Antonio Magalhães
Introduction / Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Marietta Kesting
The Hurricane in the Room: Drawing, Marginality, and Scale in Monica Bonvicini’s 75 mph / Filippo Bosco
Solar Figuration: Thinking the Human at the Scale of the Universe with Georges Bataille / Kirill Chepurin
The Scale of Love / Franco Costantini
‘A Subtle System of Feints’: Gender, Medical Photography, and the Essential Void of Sex / Cat Dawson
Affects of Multiscalarity: Rhetorics of the Too Big and Too Small across the Global and the Planetary / Federica Di Blasio
Scale and Discourse: On the Seismographic Connections between Processes / Yuri Di Liberto
Contemplating Scale: An Interview with Joshua DiCaglio / Joshua DiCaglio
Fanon Degree Zero / Tobi Haslett
(subject in parentheses) / Nicolas Helm-Grovas
Scaling Sleep: Modes of Suspension, Reduction, and Intensification / Marietta Kesting
The Measure of Generality: On the Scalar Dynamics of AI Model Evaluation Practices / Magdalena Krysztoforska
Lipglossary / Filippo Bosco, Kirill Chepurin, Franco Costantini, Tobi Haslett, Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Marietta Kesting, Jasmine Clotilde Pisapia, Angelica Stathopoulos, Verónica Stedile Luna
Scale and World-Orders: An Effort at Diplomacy between Prometheans and Gaians / José Antonio Magalhães
The Pleasure of the 1:1 Scale: A Short Interview with Lisa Messeri / Filippo Bosco, Federica Di Blasio, Marietta Kesting, Lisa Messeri
The Everyday in Dramatic Closeness / Claudia Peppel
Dust, Death, and the Body of the Earth: Notes on the Scales of Ecological Disaster / Jasmine Clotilde Pisapia
sweet nothings / Angelica Stathopoulos
Editorial Writings from a Scalar Perspective: Reduction and Expansion as Publishing Procedures / Verónica Stedile Luna
Title
The Everyday in Dramatic Closeness
Author(s)
Claudia Peppel
Identifier
Description
Does the perception of the everyday change when it is presented from an unusual perspective through shifts in scale or proportion — that is, by enlarging or reducing the size of everyday objects in relation to the viewer? This essay explores the potential transformation of domestic objects through consideration of a selection of works from the exhibition ‘The Everyday in Dramatic Closeness’, on view at ICI Berlin at the turn of 2025–26. It highlights how the exhibition sought to question perceptions and expectations of everyday life and to shed light on moments in which the everyday is perceived as unfamiliar or weird.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
November 24, 2026
Subject
everyday life
domestic objects
dramatic closeness
change of size
zooming in and out
perception
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Language
en-GB
page start
383
page end
403
Source
Scale: New Critical Essays, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Marietta Kesting, Cultural Inquiry, 40 (ICI Berlin Press, 2026), pp. 383–403

Publication date: 24 November 2026

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Cite as: Claudia Peppel, ‘The Everyday in Dramatic Closeness’, in Scale: New Critical Essays, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Marietta Kesting, Cultural Inquiry, 40 (ICI Berlin Press, 2026), pp. 383-403 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-40_cep>