Just Finished Reading: The Language of Things – Design, Luxury, Fashion, Art. How we are Seduced by the Objects Around Us by Deyan Sudjic (FP: 2008)

Rounding off my trio of books on Stuff and our relationship with it this was a well argued, knowledgeable, wide-ranging and often fascination study of how we became a culture drowning in its own manufactured products. Looking at the language of Design, the development of archetypes which resulted in the acknowledged classics of the design world, the history of luxury and its reinvention in a world where abundance is the norm (this was my favourite section), the growth in power of the fashion industry with its relentless need to change and force us to change with it, and the seemingly academic difference between art and design – even when design is presented as art – this book really made me look at things in a different way.

Everything we use, everything we see (apart from nature in the raw which exists almost nowhere these days), and everything we experience has at least elements of design about them. Designed objects exist in part to manipulate the way we feel and experience the world around us. It’s not just that objects are designed to be attractive to part us from our money (which is in itself a designed artefact) but in many ways our objects tell us who we are and advertise to the rest of the world who we want to be. Our natural tendencies to seek out new things, to acquire objects of value and to horde things in times of plenty to get us through times of famine have all been exaggerated and manipulated to produce perfect consumers who buy what we’re told to, when we are told to and to exchange perfectly serviceable objects with ‘newer’, ‘better’, and ‘more attractive’ replacements.

Looking at objects as diverse as the Anglepoise lamp, the Apple MacBook, the black Nikon SLR camera, road signs, the Citroen 2CV, the Olivetti portable typewriter, the Walther PPK (as used by James Bond no less), banknotes and the choice of faces on them, the Bakerlite rotary dial telephone, the Rolex watch, Chippendale furniture and much else besides, the author looks beyond the image, beyond the representation to see how and why these objects have become fetishized in the way they have. He examines what it says about us as human beings and what it says about the culture we have created to both produce these items and service the industries dependent on their manufacture and ultimate destruction. I have another of his books in the pile (about the architecture of power) which I shall look forward to reading fairly soon. He writes with an obviously deep understanding of his subject, with a definite wry sense of humour and an elegant wit. A delight to read from the first page to the last and, therefore, highly recommended.