Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

Objects in Flux
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in material and social form. In producing parallel narratives of use
consumers open the discursive space of the object to a multiplicity of
voices and a diverse array of social meanings.
7.5 Rethinking the object as public space
Where the commercial economy has traditionally isolated the individual
within private acts of consumption, newly emergent networked
practices remake acts of consumption as a communal endeavor. As
John Seely Brown states: ‘Tinkering is no longer an isolated activity
you do in your garage. You’re tinkering with a community platform,
you’re tinkering with other people’s stuff’ (quoted in Lessig, 2004, p.
46). In contemporary society, the privately consumed mass-produced
object becomes a distributed common ground, a sphere of action
where people gather to discuss matters of collective concern. This
site is provisional, in that it is given through the meeting of individuals
and the discursive field that arises from this meeting. What is
important here are not the material outcomes of the discussion but the
process of engagement – the ability for individuals to join in conversation
and exercise their powers of agency. If we were to conceive of the
mass-produced object as a distributed public realm, a polis or form of
public space, then we may ask: What limits should be placed on this
space, who should be allowed to determine the conversations that take
place here, and what freedoms are we willing to give up for the sake
of economic returns?
The public is only beginning to understand how much has been lost to
the increased privatization of the consumer environment. Laws such
as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the anti-circumvention
measures given within this act, bring an unprecedented level of control
to consumer society. If we wish to retain relevance and participation in
public discourse then we need to ensure public spaces, wherever they
may arise, do not disappear into private ownership.
7.6 Gaps in the research and future directions
In adopting a participatory approach to this research I was able to
conduct a highly detailed study of the field of object modification. My
pre-existing knowledge of practices of hacking and modding, including
a familiarity with computers and electronics, helped to reduce the
barriers to my participation and allowed for a deep understanding of