Can an unwanted, discarded item of consumer kitsch be imbued with new value by the simple act of telling its story? And what if that story was completely fabricated? This is the question that Significant Objects poses. The experimental online fiction project taps authors to write stories about objects found at thrift stores or yard sales. The objects are then sold through eBay auctions, in an experiment to determine which stories increased the market value of objects that initially had none.
Significant Objects is the brainchild of Rob Walker, New York Times Magazine columnist and author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, and Joshua Glenn, a columnist for the Boston Globe and editor of the cultural studies blog hilobrow.com.
Since early 2009 the duo have run the site, calling on authors both prominent (including William Gibson, Julie Klausner and Jonathan Lethem) and obscure to invent the secret history of the discarded products of yesteryear, heightening their status from thrift store detritus to desired art object, or as Walker and Glenn categorize them, "talismans, totems, evidence and fossils." Over the past year and a half, the authors' stories have collected $3992 for charities, as readers taken with particular stories bid for once-worthless items such as heart-shaped candles, napkin holders and commemorative ashtrays.
Now three "volumes" in--with proceeds from volumes two and three donated to 826 National and Girls Write Now, respectively--the Significant Objects project has earned a fair share of notoriety, including a published collection due in 2011. In the process, Significant Objects has demonstrated that the value of objects are tied up with the stories we tell about them. A slightly tongue-in-cheek literary experiment has proven to be a lens through which we can view how driven our consumerism is by the stories that are told about the products we lust for. Those stories aren't the exclusive domain of the marketers and advertisers who sell the products. It may take a noted author to bring romance to an object as prosaic as a Missouri-themed shot-glass, but we can reconsider the source of the stories that compel us to purchase new ephemeral products--and maybe find new value in our old objects with stories of our own.
I LOVE it!!!
As an avid thrifter myself who has spent a lot of time in the design world interpreting the meaning of objects, this thrills me. What a wonderful way to revive discarded objects.
Something you might be interested in: the D-Crit program at the School of Visual Arts. Their focus is on writing about and interpreting design critically and thinking about design problems in our world. It touches a lot on shareability, sustainability, the social implications of different design solutions, and the underlying stories and portents that objects (including virtual/media ones) share. I went to a one-day thesis presentation here that changed my life!
www.sva.edu... not sure where it is on there, but you can look for the D-Crit program.
The value of objects, to artists and designers and any creative thinkers, goes far beyond the surface monetary value. It is artists who define cultural standards, which define price tags and inherent status of objects. These cultural standards, ironically, are almost born out of some kind of recycling of ideas or aesthetics. If the general public would wake up and become accountable for doing this as individuals instead of buying into the artistic elite's judgements, we would be a society of innovators instead of consumers, and of course, use far fewer resources as well as being less competitive. Status would become less important than creativity, the ability to reuse objects inventively.
"This city transcends not only borders and nations, but space and time. When I walk through its streets, I experience all my life—past, present, future—at once in my mind. Memories overlap and become real."
– Sarah Noack, from City of Dreams