Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

customisation practices.
• material: a practice that regards the object as a material resource
that may be used to perform a specific set of functions. This approach
is prevalent in ad hoc actions such as using a brick as a
doorstop or an empty tin as a pencil holder. 8
• playful: a practice that manipulates the object into unusual and
surprising juxtapositions for comical and absurd effect.
The modification of an object is rarely a singular act; it generally involves
multiple material operations undertaken over an extended period
of time. As a consequence, modification projects often engage a number
of different themes. For example, while car modifications generally
follow an established tradition, they may also adopt a material approach
and use whatever object is at hand to achieve a desired effect. 9 Similarly,
within the lamp modification a material mode of engagement is discernable
in the use of a plastic mixing bowl for the parabolic reflector, and
traditional engagement is present in the use of a popular amateur circuit
design for the construction of the microphone electronics.
These themes indicate specific ways of operating within practices
of modification, however they are not reducible to a set of instructions
or procedures. Similar to de Certeau’s ‘ways of walking’ the
city (1984, p. 91), they may be regarded as a tactical manoeuvre, a
way of negotiating an imposed order while retaining something of
one’s own desire. It should be noted, however, that an individual (the
modifier) does not simply impose a way of operating on the practice.
Instead, modes of operation are a condition of the practice’s performance,
and result from the meeting and negotiation of multiple
forces within a complex field of relations. Therefore, we cannot assume
a specific causal relation between individual intent and a mode
of operation, for although we could argue that certain attitudes or
intents encourage specific operations, it is equally possible that the
reverse is true – that the repetition of a specific operation gives rise
to particular attitudes or intents within the individual practitioner
(Warde, 2005, p. 137).
Along with these various ways of operating it is possible to discern
themes within the FIX project that describe the general conditions
under which object modification takes place. Returning to the lamp
Remaking Things
8/ Such practices are the focus of
‘Design by Use: The Everyday Meta-
morphosis of Things’ (Brandes et al.,
2009).
9/ See, for example, the use of an old
t-shirt in building a fibreglass speaker
enclosure: http://www.jeeppatriot.
com/forum/showthread.php?t=17623
accessed January 31 2010. This tech-
nique, while initially a material-driven
approach, has become a tradition
within the DIY sub-woofer field.
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