value of physical object

What Is the Value of the Physical Object?

The physical object is an individual artefact. The digital object is an algorithm in which the boundaries are not fixed. Both physical and digital objects can be used to make inferences about the ephemeral aspects of culture and history, however it is this physical artifact which preserves information through the change of time.

Victor Buchli’s lecture ‘Anthropologists, guns and materialistic culture’ was key to exploring the current and future value of the physical object. He explains that material objects can be understood as social substances. As Karl Marx stated ‘Relics of bygone instruments of labour posseses the same importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determination of exstinct species of animals’ (Marx 1986: 78) The level of society is closely linked to its level of material culture. His most critical argument to me was the how the increasing materialisation of virtual goods and services is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish what is ‘real’ and how are perception and value of ‘objects’, ‘design’ and ‘digital media’ is being altered in the digital revolution.

Buchli’s most thought provoking topic was the socioeconomic implications of desktop 3d printing. Not only does 3d printing empower consumers to become the producers, they can also become the designer. This highlighted the daunting implications technological advancement has on my role as a designer and in turn how I as designer must respond to this.

In the final lecture of the bigger picture Elly Ward discusses the idea of morality in architecture. What I found particually relavant to buchlis talk was her view on the power of suggestion. She asked if we...

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...sented the surrounding context of Nottingham contemporary by digitaly printing a lace print on the façade. This is a clear representation of how technology has enabled us to cheat, by creating cheaper and faster buildings we are loosing the ability to correctly represent context in design. I wonder if digitalization in architecture will increase the importance of functionality over form.

However in contradiction to this technological advancement could infact aid us in understanding the context to a location via the Google 3D warehouse. This combines google earth and google maps providing us a geographically correct represention on virtual structures. Maybe this could enable us to design a more collaborative virtual world in which design can both fit together more coherently yet enable a more diverse sense of culture as buildings can become more location specific.