Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

Objects in Flux
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structure affects our use of the object; a Bible, for example, although
materially similar to a telephone directory, presents a significantly
different set of social meanings when subjected to the previously
stated divergent uses. The situation is, as Reckwitz claims, that ‘the
material artefact influences – but does not determine – which practical
understanding and, consequently, which kinds of social practices are
possible’ (2002, p. 213).
Benjamin concludes that matter and meaning, while delimited by
function, are never co-extensive. The possibility for the object to become
something ‘other’ stems from this founding lack of co-extensivity,
while at the same time ‘reproduces the impossibility of that closure
in its transformation into an object’ (1993, p. 33). Here, producing
an object can be understood as the unification of matter and meaning,
an impossible closure made possible by social practices. Within this
closure, matter and meaning are given as one; the object is at once
material artefact and social practice. Beneath this unified façade, however,
lie the divergent possibilities offered by matter, always in excess
of any specific function to which an object may be put.
2.4 Function, narrative and belonging
An object’s stability – its ability to activate a consistent meaning
structure – depends on its repeated articulation through that meaning
structure, i.e. the repeated performance of a specific function within a
specific social context. Function therefore acts as a grounding force,
curtailing the countless excesses of matter and meaning by providing
the object with a sense of purpose and belonging.
Although notions of function are often reduced to a mechanistic
performance of materiality, function is always couched in narrative. In
their paper on the domestic freezer in the United Kingdom, Elizabeth
Shove and Dale Southerton show how these narratives of use shift and
accumulate over time (2000). Subtle changes in freezer technology
during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s and enduring social conditions combine
to produce shifts in the perceived role of the freezer. These changes are
reflected in the various narratives used to promote freezer use in the UK
(2000, p. 313). Shove and Southerton assert that this does not amount
to an ‘unfolding narrative of a stable object’, but rather a ‘reinvention
of the freezer’, claiming that ‘despite its persistently white disguise, the