Beech eating machine: a new materialist critique of the Thonet no. 14 chair
Date
2016
Authors
Keulemans, G.
Editors
Wong, W.S.
Kikuchi, Y.
Lin, T.
Kikuchi, Y.
Lin, T.
Advisors
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Conference paper
Citation
Blucher Design Proceedings, 2016 / Wong, W.S., Kikuchi, Y., Lin, T. (ed./s), pp.354-360
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10th Conference of the International Committee for Design History & Design Studies (26 Oct 2016 - 28 Oct 2016 : Taipei, Taiwan)
Abstract
This paper adopts a new materialist framework, developed from Deleuzian-Guattarian concepts of affect, to assess the socio-environmental relations of the Thonet No. 14 chair in forestry, industry, culture and labour. The hybridity of industry, forestry and human force with the chair’s materiality, operating by processes of sensation and perception, is examined in the context of manufacturing and consumption culture. The chair’s lightness, stiffness and strength, its experimental design and innovative use of steam power, is shown to have triggered production and consumption events with social and environmental consequences. Material expressions are framed as micropolitical affects that propagated into macropolitical fields via the sensory experience of the chair’s material conditions and forces, binding consumers and producers into patterns of behaviour. These are discussed in reference to cafe culture, lion taming, and the expansion of the Thonet empire – including their labour practices, use of proprietary currency and effect on European forestry. The value of this kind of new materialist inquiry to contemporary aspects of production and consumption is briefly speculated.
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Copyright 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution 4.0 International.