virtualization of design and production a thesis - Bilkent University

“So it is necessary to distinguish the logic of consumption,
which is logic of the sign and difference from several other
logics that habitually get entangled with it in the welter of
evidential considerations. Four logics would be concerned
here:
1. functional logic of use value
2. economic logic of exchange value
3. logic of symbolic exchange value
4. logic of sign value
The first is logic of practical operations, the second one of
equivalence, the third, ambivalence and the fourth,
difference. Or again: logic of utility, logic of the market,
logic of the gift and logic of status. Organized in accordance
with one of the above groupings, the object assumes
respectively the status of an instrument, a commodity, a
symbol and a sign.” (Baudrillard 66)
Defining the object of consumption, it has to be freed from its psychic
determinations as symbol, from its functional determinations as instrument; from
its commercial determinations as product and thus it is liberated as a sign.
(Baudrillard 67) This argument can be exemplified with every basic product that
contributes to our immediate environment. Nothing can be more instrumental
than a car in terms of a rapid and efficient transportation. In the case of market
relations, obviously some cars are more costly than their peers depending on the
level of performance, technology and luxury– that is what the market offers for
target economical segments. Although car instance is far too exaggerated as a
gift, let’s assume that it has neither use nor exchange value emphasizing the
singularity of the moment of exchange and of the gift itself. But as soon as a
certain brand of car is transformed into a non-singular sign, an object of status
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