Sunthemata27 on Nostr: The potency of consumption objects lies in their indeterminacy and indefiniteness, in ...
The potency of consumption objects lies in their indeterminacy and indefiniteness, in the fact that they can be utilized in a variety of semiotic manipulations: „Thus the washing machine serves as an appliance and acts as an element of prestige, comfort, etc. It is strictly this latter field which is the field of consumption. All kinds of other objects may be substituted here for the washing machine as signifying element“1.
Symbols in these terms may be viewed as intelligible mater, a concept coined by Plotinus, being a pendant to the intelligible forms, intelligible mater is everything at the same time, in contrast to mater in the sensible world, where one form can substitute another, thus losing its self identity, something not possible for intelligible mater. Imagine it like a variable in math, for example x ranging over the domain of R, as a placeholder symbol our variable is encapsulated by the whole set of R, without ever losing its self identity, x is still x even though the concept (form) of a specific number may be attached to it. By analogy we can view this abstract system of production as a form-giving apparatus connected via signs who function as shape-shifting signifiers where the symbols of production never lose their self-identity, a functional one that is, e.g the washing machine still is a washing machine in its operations, but can be infused with various, potentially indefinite, meanings, hence show casing a great degree of potentia for semiotic manipulation.
1)The Consumer Society (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
Jean Baudrillard
Symbols in these terms may be viewed as intelligible mater, a concept coined by Plotinus, being a pendant to the intelligible forms, intelligible mater is everything at the same time, in contrast to mater in the sensible world, where one form can substitute another, thus losing its self identity, something not possible for intelligible mater. Imagine it like a variable in math, for example x ranging over the domain of R, as a placeholder symbol our variable is encapsulated by the whole set of R, without ever losing its self identity, x is still x even though the concept (form) of a specific number may be attached to it. By analogy we can view this abstract system of production as a form-giving apparatus connected via signs who function as shape-shifting signifiers where the symbols of production never lose their self-identity, a functional one that is, e.g the washing machine still is a washing machine in its operations, but can be infused with various, potentially indefinite, meanings, hence show casing a great degree of potentia for semiotic manipulation.
1)The Consumer Society (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
Jean Baudrillard