“Objectified” is a feature –length documentary about our relationship with manufactured products and the characters who designed them. Directed by Gary Hustwit.
The short film started out with the argument; “everything in our lives is designed”. This message at first seems clichéd and rather generalizing. But when though about carefully and as the theme starts to take form in “objectified”, the viewer soon realises that they are indeed living in a world where everything has been designed and made from someone’s idea. But then comes the problem; what is good and what is bad design?
Dieter Rams, a world renowned German Industrial Designer, states that there are too many things in our world which are totally unnecessary. Too many things have been drawn out and made without much deep, meaningful thoughts gone in to them. For example a rubber iPod case, why not just design a product that doesn’t need an additional product to prolong its sustainability? Rams states that not many companies today take the issue of design seriously, apart from one, Apple.
Apple Designer, Jonathan Ive, points out some interesting points when presenting the viewer with the parts and steps involved in making a macbook.
He made me realise that consumers take design for granted in the everyday objects that we use every single day just because it has become such an ordinary part in our lives. Jonathan Ive points out that consumers think products have the forms they have because they’re just ‘meant’ to look that way. For example, ‘of course an iPhone would look like this…’ or ‘How else would an iPod look like’. All of these are assumptions that happen consciously or subconsciously when a product is presented to the viewer. This is stated near the start of the short film; “objectified”. Millions of assumptions are made towards the product the second it hits our eyes.
“Objectified” also brings the element of sustainability and the environmental impacts of products to the viewers’ attention. For example, if something I’ve designed today is going to end up in the dump in 4 or 5 years from now, is that really good design even if the consumer liked it when they first bought it? Well-designed products should last a long time and even if it doesn’t it should have as less impact on the environment as possible. A part of the short-film inspired me as it mentions, instead of losing interest and attraction to a product over time, we should like it even more as it accompanies us through individual stages of our lives. This reminds me of my old iPhone. When I first bought the phone in grade 11, I cherished it like I would my favourite toy as a child. I would rather the cuts; dints and scratches transferred on to my arm then end up on the screen its smooth, silver back. Then as time past, I had subconsciously relied more and more aspects of my life on the phone that at times when it went missing, I would have trouble going through my day or have nothing to do on long bus rides. But then came the day when I had dropped it one too many times or when it came with contact with one too many drops of water. Normally I would be happy to replace my phone and be excited to buy a new one but since I have built this invisible and strange relationship with this phone, I did not want another one.
I guess this was exactly what was described in “objectified” as the relationship between a product or an object and its designer or consumer. This short-film has made me look at objects in my life differently and not just view it as something that was always meant to have the shape it has or look a certain way, but has something that has been carefully and specifically thought-out and designed.
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