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design in the household. I have also described designed products as existing
on a waiting plane; for example, they might be waiting for future repairs to be
made or for the product to find its place within the home.
But even waiting suggests activity. If one is waiting, one is waiting for something,
like the characters in the play are, probably endlessly, waiting for Godot.
The notion of waiting leaves little space for complete indifference, which, I
think, would be an accurate description of most of our connections with the
products. Alas, the indifference, the absence of activity and attention, is very
difficult to catch a hold of in research. The domestication framework, however,
can be seen to acknowledge indifference towards domestic settings, even if in
an admittedly indirect manner:
6 D E S I G N L I M B O
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It is possible to see how physical artefacts, in their arrangement and display,
as well as in their construction and in the creation of the environment for
their display, provide an objectification of the values, the aesthetic and the
cognitive universe, of those who feel comfortable or identify with them. (Silverstone
et al. 1992 22-23)
I am suggesting that it is possible to dwell in a home without feeling anything
particular about it and without identifying with “the aesthetic and the cognitive
universe” that the arrangement and display of artefacts would objectify,
should someone be interested in them. In other words, neither the concept
of home nor of design are necessarily as loaded as the existing literature and
professional and layman conversations make them out to be when people are
specifically concentrating on discussing them. In such discussions – as well as
in the interviews in my data – the very process of focusing on the topic causes
it gain more importance than what people otherwise give it during the course
of their everyday lives. While the failures and disappointments that are a part
of curating perfect hotels, museums and galleries within the home often generate
corrective activities (Shove et al. 2007b 34-35), these activities are by no
means automatic. Even disappointing interior decoration can be tolerable and
does not necessarily need to be changed.