Introduction
The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents
itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” its unit being a single commodity. What is a thing? The question is quite old. What remains ever new about it is merely that
it must be asked again and again. There is an extraordinary lack of academic discussion pertaining to artefacts as objects,
despite their pervasive presence as the context for modern life. |
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| The study of things is also the study of culture. All things—big and small, mundane and extraordinary, simple and complex, expensive and cheap—are essential components of the culture of everyday life. The cities we live in, the buildings we occupy, the spaces we move through, the things we use and the images we gaze upon mediate our experience of the world. It is in the constant company of these things that we go about our daily rituals of work and play. These things shape our world. And a good number of them are products of our own making; they are of human design. Design’s core mission is to fashion things so that we may have meaningful interactions with the world. Meanings are neither inherent properties of the things themselves, nor are they total fabrications of the human mind; they are suspended in the spaces between us and all that is around us. Click here to continue reading. | |