A System of Objects Kelsey

Jean Baudrillard's introduction to A System of Objects is a dense read, but it touches on some important things to consider as a ceramic artist and maker of things. The essay revolves around humans' inability to categorize manmade things. We've managed to typify and inventory natural objects, and although natural species and manmade things are similar in their evolution and the strangeness of their subsequent mutations, we've failed to develop a consistent vocabulary with which to refer to the objects in manmade realm although we have developed a system with which to discuss the natural elements. Why don't we have a reliable system of analysis for the objects that we create? Baudrillard answers this question through his a discourse about the essential and inessential qualities of objects. Most of the objects we create are rooted in function, and have a thread of functional determinism within them. In a theoretical and technological realm, our manmade objects are essentially required to fulfill their function, operate in harmony with other manmade objects, and incorporate their different functions/elements seamlessly so that the form and function are inseparable. But our everyday objects aren't totally functionally deterministic; they are also influenced by the idiosyncrasies of human needs, and human interactions with objects often contradict the rationality of an object's technological elements. As makers, in addition to considering the utility of our creations, we begin to consider the way the object would exist in a culture and the way it would address our own irrational needs (and the considerations don't always follow in this order-- oftentimes, the essential elements of an object are sacrificed in order to imbue them with secondary meanings). The often paradoxical interplay between the essential and inessential requirements of an object make it impossible for us to treat them as systems which we can objectively categorize.