Wild Things

What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds? Has the quest for 'the real thing' become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us? This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of object's "lives". Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as "things with attitude" differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to 'clutter', the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.

Judy Attfield was Senior Lecturer in History and Design at the University of Southampton, UK. A pioneer of the field of material culture studies, she was a member of the editorial board of the journal 'Home Cultures'.

List of illustrations Preface to the original edition Preface to the current edition by Claudia Marina Introduction: The material culture of everyday life Part I: Things 1. The meaning of design: Things with attitude 2. The meaning of things: Design in the lower case 3. Things and the dynamics of social change Part II: Themes 4. Continuity: Authenticity and the paradoxical nature of reproduction 5. Change: The ephemeral materiality of identity 6. Containment: The ecology of personal possessions Part III: Contexts 7. Space: Where things take place 8. Time: bringing things to life 9. The body: The threshold between nature and culture Conclusion Afterword by Jo Turney Bibliography Index