In this module we study the basic principles of material culture, using artifacts to understand historical values and beliefs. In addition we cover the difference between designed objects and vernacular objects.

1. OBJECTS [BY DESIGN]
Module 10

2. “ALTHOUGH ART MUSEUMS,
historical societies, museums
of history and technology,
historic houses, open-air
museums, and museums of
ethnography, science, and
even natural history, have
long collected, studied, and
exhibited the material of what
has come to be called
material culture, no
comprehensive academic
philosophy or discipline for
the investigation of material
culture has as yet been
developed.”

6. “Material culture is the study
through artifacts of the
beliefs —
values, ideas, attitudes, and
assump- tions—of a
particular community or
society at a given time. The
term material culture is also
fre- quently used to refer to
artifacts themselves, to the
body of material available for
such study. I shall restrict the
term to mean the study and
refer to the evidence simply
as material or artifacts.”

7. WHAT IS AN ARTIFACT?
O R D I N A R Y O L D
P E B B L E
P E B B L E T O O L S , O L D U V A I
G O R G E , T A N Z A N I A , 1 . 8
M I L L I O N Y E A R S A G O

9. PIECE OF OBSIDIAN (VOLCANIC GLASS)

10. OBSIDIAN TOOLS
Properties of the material are
enhanced by human intervention

11. ARE THESE NATURALLY-OCCURRING THINGS, OR
ARTIFACTS?

12. Why should one bother to investigate
material objects in the quest for
culture, for a society's systems of
belief? Surely people in all societies
express and have expressed their
beliefs more explicitly and openly in
their words and deeds than in the
things they have made. Are there
aspects of mind to be discovered in
objects that differ from,
complement, supplement, or
contradict what can be learned from
more traditional literary and
behavioral sources?

13. WHAT COULD BE CULTURALLY REVEALING ABOUT THE
STUDY OF OBJECTS?
1. Cultural value can be understood through multiple lenses when dealing
with material objects.
 Inherent value.
 Value in original context, at a later point, today. (subject to frequent change)
 Use value.
 Aesthetic, spiritual, relational values.

14. WHAT COULD BE CULTURALLY REVEALING ABOUT THE
STUDY OF OBJECTS?
2. Objects survive and provide direct and tangible evidence of the past.
This allows us to “experience” the past through empathetic
engagement of our senses.

15. "This affective mode of apprehension
through the senses that allows us to
put ourselves, figuratively speaking,
inside the skins of individuals who
commissioned, made, used, or
enjoyed these objects, to see with
their eyes and touch with their
hands, to identify with them
empathetically, is clearly a different
way of engaging the past than
abstractly through the written word.
Instead of our minds making
intellectual contact with minds of the
past, our senses make affective
contact with senses of past.”
—Arnold Hauser,
Sociology of Art

16. What different kinds of value can we isolate and
appreciate in this pendant?

17. WHAT COULD BE CULTURALLY REVEALING ABOUT THE
STUDY OF OBJECTS?
3. Objects might be more representative of what people in a society are
doing, thinking and feeling than words are.

18. Henry Glassie has observed that
only a small percentage of the
world's population is and has
been literate, and that the
people who write literature or
keep diaries are atypical.
Objects are used by a much
broader cross section of the
population and are therefore
potentially a more wide-ranging,
more representative source of
information than words.

19. WHAT COULD BE CULTURALLY REVEALING ABOUT THE
STUDY OF OBJECTS?
3. Objects are physically real, capable of empathetic use.
“The theoretical democratic advantage of artifacts in general, and
vernacular material in particular, is partially offset by the skewed nature
of what in fact survives from an earlier culture. A primary factor in this
is the destructive, or the preservative, effect of particular environments
on particular materials. Materials from the deeper recesses of time are
often buried, and recovered archaeologically. Of the material heritage of
such cultures, glass and ceramics survive in relatively good condition,
metal in poor to fair condition, wood in the form of voids (postholes),
and clothing not at all (except for metallic threads, buttons, and an odd
clasp or hook).”

20. R E V E A L H U G E A M O U N T S O F I N F O R M A T I O N A B O U T
T H E P E O P L E ( A N D T H E C U L T U R E S ) T H A T M A D E
T H E M .
W E C A N “ R E A D ” T H E S E I M A G E S T O L E A R N A B O U T
O T H E R S O C I E T I E S , A N D A B O U T O U R S E L V E S .

21. In the West (for example, Europe
and the USA), this kind of
artifact has been “put on
pedestal” as the most exalted
kind of artifact.
Here we tend to privilege art above
other kinds of artifacts.
(E.g., Krannert vs. Spurlock
Museum)
Augustus St.-Gaudens, Diana,
1892-4, in Philadelphia Museum of Art
ONE CATEGORY OF ARTIFACTS IS ART.

22. HOW ARE OBJECTS PRESENTED IN THESE TWO
DIFFERENT VENUES?
WHAT DOES THE METHOD OF DISPLAY CONVEY
ABOUT THE VALUE/SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
OBJECTS DISPLAYED?

23. ANOTHER CATEGORY OF THINGS IS “VERNACULAR”
OBJECTS.
Shaker side chair, maple with rush seating, c. 1880

24. THESE ARE ORDINARY OBJECTS WHICH HAVE WIDE
POPULARITY AND WHOSE SPECIFIC ORIGINS ARE OBSCURE.
Shaker side chair, maple with cane seating, c. 1880 Plastic outdoor chair, c. present

25. Bryan Ropar with a small sample of his plastic chair collection

26. Maarten Baas, in collaboration
with Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai
Plastic Chair in Wood, 2008
elm wood

27. Sam Durant, Porcelain Chairs,
2006

28. Jules Prown
“…works of art constitute a large
and special category within
artifacts because their
inevitable aesthetic and
occasional ethical or spiritual
(iconic) dimensions make
them direct and often overt or
intentional expressions of
cultural belief. The self-
consciously expressive
character of this
material, however, raises
problems as well as
opportunities; in some ways
artifacts that express culture
unconsciously are more
useful as objective cultural
indexes.”
(Prown, “Mind in Matter,” p.2)
Siegfried Giedion
“We shall deal here with
humble things, things
not usually granted
earnest consideration,
or at least not valued for
their historical import.
But no more in history
than in painting is it the
impressiveness of the
subject that matters.
The sun is mirrored
even in a coffee spoon.”
(Giedion, “Anonymous
History,” p. 294)
THE VALUE OF “ANONYMOUS HISTORY”

30. W E U S E T H I S W O R D O F T E N , F O R E X A M P L
Fashion design
Interior design
Product design
Packaging design
Graphic design
Automotive design
Web design
User interface design

31. PACKAGING DESIGN: COMPARE/CONTRAST
1. What stylistic choices are made in these package designs? Let’s list as many as we
2. What meanings do we attribute to those stylistic differences?

32.  Something made through a process of
careful consideration, often but not
always credited to a specific maker.
 Something made with both function
and aesthetic appeal in mind.
AND
relatively minor changes in the
appearance of a product

33. FASHION DESIGN, OR PRODUCT STYLING?

35. “ V E R Y F E W A S P E C T S O F T H E M A T E R I A L
E N V I R O N M E N T A R E I N C A P A B L E O F
I M P R O V E M E N T I N S O M E S I G N I F I C A N T W A Y B Y
G R E A T E R A T T E N T I O N B E I N G P A I D T O T H E I R
D E S I G N . I N A D E Q U A T E L I G H T I N G , M A C H I N E S
T H A T A R E N O T U S E R - F R I E N D L Y , B A D L Y -
F O R M A T T E D I N F O R M A T I O N , A R E J U S T A F E W
E X A M P L E S O F B A D D E S I G N T H A T C R E A T E
C U M U L A T I V E P R O B L E M S A N D T E N S I O N S . ”
— H E S K E T T , P . 2

36. B E T W E E N U S , A S P E O P L E , A N D
T H E O B J E C T S T H A T S U R R O U N D
U S .
G O O D D E S I G N E R S T R Y T O M A K E
T H I S R E L A T I O N S H I P A H A P P Y
O N E .

37. Name three
visual/function
al elements of
the chair.
SIDE CHAIR, CIRCA 1880, MAPLE, CANE SEAT
LEBANON, MASSACHUSETTS

38. COMPARE/CONTRAST: FORM
Side chair, gilt and Beauvais tapestry, c. 1780

39. COMPARE/CONTRAST: MEANINGS

43. Whistler, Arrangement in Gray and Black #1, 1871
Ingres, Princesse de Broglie, 1853

44. Briefly describe the visual form of the seating pictured in this photograph. Then
speculate: what set of functions are implied in this design? What meanings can we
infer about the people likely to be seated in each chair?