Bloomsbury Home
- Home
- ACADEMIC
- Design
- Theory and Practice of Design
- Wild Things
This product is usually dispatched within 1 week
- Delivery and returns info
-
Free US delivery on orders $35 or over
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
Description
Shortlisted for the Design History Society Scholarship Prize 2001-2002 What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects after the check-out 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 in objects lives. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings that reflect and assert who we are. Defining design as things with attitude differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary artefacts that are 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. But 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.
Product details
Published | Dec 01 2000 |
---|---|
Format | Hardback |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 336 |
ISBN | 9781859733646 |
Imprint | Berg Publishers |
Illustrations | 30 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index |
Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
Series | Materializing Culture |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
-
'Wild Things is an initial foray into a territory that, for all its ubiquity and ordinariness, remains academically unchartered. For me it is not a book to agree with or disagree with, but a book to think with (and what more could you ask for?).'Journal of Design History

ONLINE RESOURCES
Bloomsbury Collections
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.