OBJECTIFIED

     










The film Objectified; a documentary film by Gary Hustwit, portrayed a series of artists and the objects that they created. It showed a complex array of various designs with modern ideas. The objects featured ranged from MAC computers, to sofas, potato peelers, and even toothbrushes. The relationship between form and content was inspiring. Artists would take old ideas or objects and reinvent them, they would take old ideas and make them new; usually making them better and more eco-friendly. It was interesting seeing the evolution of these objects, because most of them were objects or pieces of objects that one wouldn’t normally think about or give a second thought to. Maybe that is what makes these objects so great, their ability to adapt or be adapted by anyone. In the film they said “almost everything has been designed in one way or another.” I think this quote is great because most people don’t normally think of their toothbrush being “designed.”  One artist also said that, “in every design there was a design and decision made about that object.” However small the object may be, meticulous thought has actually gone into making that object better and more pleasing to us, so maybe we won't judge them as harshly or even notice them as much - because “we make assumptions about objects in seconds- how much it should cost, weigh, etc.” One example of an object you wouldn't normally think of is a toothpick, which was designed for the tip to break off and be used as a thing to rest the toothpick on.
     The film overall communicates an argument about contemporary designs and designers by showing how these designers are taking the everyday and making them more superior so they can stand up in the harsh society that we live in today. They are also taking into account our current world situation and how we are in need of preserving natural resources, by making their objects use materials to their full capability –while helping the environment. Taking old objects where “form followed function” to new phases of formal design. They are focusing on what will happen not what has happened. They are changing their designs to match that of our changing views of how we look at the world, getting rid of everything that doesn’t maximize unity and harmony.  They are designing by simplifying.  

[Photos from: http://www.typeneu.com/v2/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/objectified.jpg, http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/kindle2/Objectified-Poster-Large.jpg, http://givemefreestuff.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/mac_book_air3.jpg]