Baudrillard, Jean. “Introduction.” The
System of Objects. Verso, 2005. 1-10. Print.
Rather
than working to try to summarize the main ideas in this conceptually rich
chapter by Baudrillard, I would like to discuss some smaller, detailed ideas
that struck me personally which I find worth discussing. So here it goes.
The
first idea that grabbed my attention was that of the “ever-accelerating
procession of generations of products, appliances and gadgets” (p. 1). Although Baudrillard uses this as more
of a context for his later points, I think it is important to acknowledge the
fact that we live in a world of things. And not only that, but a world of
things that is constantly growing, changing, expanding (etc.) from generation
to generation. History can be recorded by technology and that technology is
then recorded through the documented history of a culture. In ceramics, we make
things that live in this context of the world, both functional and
non-functional. We strive to engineer/design to discover/share beauty and we
break the pots that don’t “make sense” in the world of objects.
Baudrillard
mentions how an “every day object transforms something” (p. 1), forming in my
mind all sorts of intriguing questions. What is that “something?” Is it food
(such as a plate), experience (the feeling
of using and interacting with a plate), or relationships (the intention of a
set of plates being to bring people together to share a meal)? He also writes
of objects being linguistically defined by human interaction/experience/needs. I believe this gives us a sense of the “who”
of the objects we create, with the transformation previously mentioned being
the “how,” the objects we create acting as the “what,” and the “when” and “where”
being the cultural context. The
author then discusses the “personalization, of formal connotation, where the
inessential holds sway” (p. 7), giving us (more or less) the concept of “why.”
While it is important for an artist to keep his or her work open to change both
technologically and interpretively, I think it is also important for an artist
to begin to narrow down the key concepts that are important to them. There
remains a more personalized and individual perspective that reflects what the
artist needs to say. Without this aspect, ideas remain as ideas and objects as
objects.
In
the last portion of this chapter, Baudrillard writes of “the ways in which
techniques are checked by practices” (p. 9). It is interesting to me how, in
pottery specifically, we as artists seem to experience both learning the sheer
physical/technical processes (such as wheel throwing and mold making) and the
conceptual/philosophical processes (color theory and formal visual elements)
simultaneously. This process, although steep at first, continues throughout our
experience and working with clay. We learn, practice, and play and it is
through this that we discover the complex system of objects. We make things not
just to create but also to learn. It is as Sanam Emami once said: “How you make
something is just as important as what you are making.”
Molly Post
“When you stated that “History can be recorded by technology and that technology is then recorded through the documented history of a culture” and that “In ceramics, we make things that live in this context of the world, both functional and non-functional”, a few of things immediately came to mind. History has been recorded through technology, and technology has constantly gone through huge changes and advancements throughout history. In relation to ceramics, and specifically our making today, the technology we have allows us to look back on designs throughout history, as far back as some of the first pots. This is something that is unique to us today because we have the ability to look at any number of objects created throughout history and regard them as our influences. Around the world, people and their cultures are influenced by what has been handed down to them from previous generations; or the “documented history of a culture.” We can take ideas from anywhere, any time period, and the things we make are unique because of this.
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