ABSTRACT
In his novel Le Peau de Chagrin, de Balzac conjures a talisman that takes the concept of artifact as a status to an extreme. The talisman evokes many of the themes, including the central argument that humans and artifacts are not equivalent actors. Artifact is a status that results from a particular engagement between humans and the material, and as illustrated by the talisman the symbiosis created between the individual and an artifact is profound. An ecology with artifacts also engages with the political dimension of ecology, a critical dimension recognized and articulated in Bennett's writing on the vitality of matter. The chapter suggests that objects with artifact status are a part of the evolutionary landscape of our species. Artifacts are not something grafted onto our humanity, something to perhaps be discarded to get at a "natural" self.
